|
Post by berkley on Dec 28, 2019 14:30:01 GMT -5
I’m glad you include the prequels in there. They didn’t really expand the SW universe, but rather made it smaller and smaller: it was all about a few characters who all knew each other, with rather simple motivations. In that regard, Rogue One (for all that it was also an attempt to cash in on the franchise’s name) was more successful, since it showed how nobodies could influence the course of events without being at the centre of everything. Yes, that was one of my criticisms of the prequels. Lucas went out of his way to give more screen time to the beloved characters from the original trilogy and tried too hard to tie them all together, like you say, making the SW universe smaller. There was absolutely no reason to make Anakin the creator of C3-PO. I thought that one of the more ridiculous innovations of the prequels. I love Chewie, but didn't need to see him fighting in the Clone Wars. And so on. And agreed about Rogue One, which I thought was a good enough movie, if somewhat forgettable. And doesn't this remind you of something? The exact same thing plagues the shared superhero universes of the MU and DCU, and for much the same reasons = plodding, uninspired writers with no ideas apart from tying everything together, guided by no creative vision, just a determination to keep milking the cash cow.
|
|
|
Post by The Captain on Dec 28, 2019 16:10:10 GMT -5
Well, after a pretty lackluster middle, Mandalorian completely redeemed itself in the last two episodes. Episode 8 blows away everything Star Wars related since the original trilogy. They packed 10x more awesomeness into 45 minutes than any of these new movies could into 2 1/2 hours. I just finished the series earlier this afternoon and, after watching Captain Marvel to pass the time while my wife and daughters were out spending their Christmas cash and gift cards (as they get older, the girls get easier to buy for, as the older one, especially, wants gift cards so she can buy clothes), I logged on here to write essentially the same thing. I get why they detoured the show to more "quiet" episodes, and while they may not have been quite as bad as I originally thought, they did derail the momentum the show was building. In retrospect, I think the only episode I have a real problem with is the fifth one, because it really did nothing for this season other than tread water. I'm guessing that we will see more of Ming-Na Wen's character down the road, and that may make for interesting viewing, but when one only has 8 episodes to tell a story, every one of them needs to push that story along and that one didn't do so for the current season. Also, I'm betting that Bill Burr is a buddy of Jon Favreau's, because I cannot think of any reason to utilize him in episode 6; it totally took me out of the SW universe when I heard Burr's accent, which is not a good thing to do to an audience. Then, with the last two episodes, they created an entirely new Star Wars. They gave us a rounded character, trying to get by in the aftermath of other folks doing plenty to ruin the universe, finding a purpose in his life bigger than he originally imagined. Sure, the trappings of the bigger SW universe are still there, but this story isn't one focused on Jedi versus Sith or Skywalkers versus Palpatines or any of the legacy characters that were sadly rolled out in the final trilogy as fan service. It's possible to CARE about what happens to the Mandalorian, because he is behaving in a realistic, human way, and the story they are telling has depth beyond being crass commercialism. My only complaint with the final two episodes, although I understand why this was done, is {Spoiler: Click to show}that they killed Kuill and IG-11 off. They were good supporting characters, and while I, a long-time fan of Supernatural where every good supporting character eventually gets killed off, am used to it, I didn't feel it was necessary (at least not Kuill). The tiny quibble with the IG-11 "death" scene is that the whole exchange with him and the Mandalorian (about him finishing his mission and thus being allowed to self-destruct) was completely lifted from Big Hero Six, as the way to get Baymax to go back into his case was the exact same.
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Dec 29, 2019 9:59:40 GMT -5
Well, after a pretty lackluster middle, Mandalorian completely redeemed itself in the last two episodes. Episode 8 blows away everything Star Wars related since the original trilogy. They packed 10x more awesomeness into 45 minutes than any of these new movies could into 2 1/2 hours. I just finished the series earlier this afternoon and, after watching Captain Marvel to pass the time while my wife and daughters were out spending their Christmas cash and gift cards (as they get older, the girls get easier to buy for, as the older one, especially, wants gift cards so she can buy clothes), I logged on here to write essentially the same thing. I get why they detoured the show to more "quiet" episodes, and while they may not have been quite as bad as I originally thought, they did derail the momentum the show was building. In retrospect, I think the only episode I have a real problem with is the fifth one, because it really did nothing for this season other than tread water. I'm guessing that we will see more of Ming-Na Wen's character down the road, and that may make for interesting viewing, but when one only has 8 episodes to tell a story, every one of them needs to push that story along and that one didn't do so for the current season. Also, I'm betting that Bill Burr is a buddy of Jon Favreau's, because I cannot think of any reason to utilize him in episode 6; it totally took me out of the SW universe when I heard Burr's accent, which is not a good thing to do to an audience. Then, with the last two episodes, they created an entirely new Star Wars. They gave us a rounded character, trying to get by in the aftermath of other folks doing plenty to ruin the universe, finding a purpose in his life bigger than he originally imagined. Sure, the trappings of the bigger SW universe are still there, but this story isn't one focused on Jedi versus Sith or Skywalkers versus Palpatines or any of the legacy characters that were sadly rolled out in the final trilogy as fan service. It's possible to CARE about what happens to the Mandalorian, because he is behaving in a realistic, human way, and the story they are telling has depth beyond being crass commercialism. And wow, was Favreau eclectic with his fanservice. He lifted elements from everything. The Star Wars Holiday Special. Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. The Clone Wars cartoon series. (Which will now be difficult to watch, considering how often the Mandalorians in it take off their helmets.) My favorite fan moment was when the Imperial Troop Transport rolled on-screen. Apparently it's been in some cartoons and comic books already, but never live action as far as I know. I had to explain to my son what it was. Meanwhile my teen son was enthused to recognize the E-Web before it was named, though its function appears to have nothing to do with webs and instead repeated a plot element from the first episode. As far as the plot: I agree that with only eight episodes, the middle four should have been less self-contained. And my viewing experience was a constant "But if they can X, why don't they Y?" Like, if you have a minigun, aren't closely packed enemies exactly what you want? But I tried to put those thoughts aside and relish it like the ten year old boy for which it was intended.
|
|
|
Post by dbutler69 on Dec 29, 2019 13:20:33 GMT -5
rberman, I've never seen The Mandalorian, but seeing that picture of the Imperial Troop Transporter brings back major memories! In fact, I still have one!
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Dec 29, 2019 17:33:57 GMT -5
P.S. I loved the character named “Xi’an,” an obvious reference to Karma in the New Mutants.
|
|
|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 31, 2019 18:00:58 GMT -5
No spoliers. Just came back from an afternoon viewing wife my wife and my eldest son (who showed up after all after saying he couldn’t make it. Surprise, progenitors!) I really enjoyed it. It’s better than the other sequels and the prequels, ranking somewhere just below or on equal footing with Return of the Jedi in 4th position in the saga, as far as I’m concerned. (I suppose RotJ has the edge because it was there first, and we were more emotionally involved with Luke than with Rey). Characters don’t share equal time on screen, but then not every character is equally important. Only the continued underuse of R2-D2 (who has essentially been replaced by BB-8, which is like Pikachu being replaced by Pichu) surprised me somewhat; on the other hand C-3PO never had such an important role before. This is clearly his most active (and heroic) time in the saga. For this Threepio fan, that was gold! In the Grand Scheme of Things, I was elated to see that this “final chapter” integrated the previous ones into what does feel like a greater storyline, in a way that was both respectful of the earlier trilogies and didn’t feel like a mere retread. One thing I really didn’t like previously about the character Snoke, for example, is that at first he came across as a cheap copy of the Emperor, and in the next film as a bumbling and pretentious idiot. In this third instalment, he is made into a fitting piece of the puzzle. In fact, that is what I enjoyed the most about this film, despite its breakneck pace and plot adjustment overload: it makes everything fit together quite nicely, and brings it all to a satisfying conclusion. I mean, no Star Wars film yet had me shed a tear at the end, except this one. It was an excellent coda, full of the hope inspired by, well, A New Hope (I hate calling it that).Accusations of fan service are simply unfair. To me, fan service consists in making links or referring things that bring nothing to the plot but satisfy hardcore fans, like the origin of Han Solo’s dice in the movie Solo. In the case of the Rise of Skywalker, bringing back old characters, situations, locales or props just brought a sense of closure and felt entirely justified. I mean, wouldn’t this film have been poorer without {Spoiler: Click to show}that cameo by Wedge ? Dramatically speaking, we get a surprising amount of character development (considering that TRoS is basically almost one long action scene). The friendship between Rey, Finn and Poe develops into something akin to that between our original trio of heroes; the Kylo Ren arc is much better than in the previous film, and the appearances by old characters (be it as voices, Force ghosts or memories) all contributed to plant this movie firmly in the saga. Oh, and this curmudgeon has to admit something... the scene with two characters rejuvenated by the magic of CGI was better than in Rogue One, and hit me right there in the meow-meow. All in all, a pretty good afternoon.
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 31, 2019 19:23:36 GMT -5
No spoliers. Just came back from an afternoon viewing wife my wife and my eldest son (who showed up after all after saying he couldn’t make it. Surprise, progenitors!) I really enjoyed it. It’s better than the other sequels and the prequels, ranking somewhere just below or on equal footing with Return of the Jedi in 4th position in the saga, as far as I’m concerned. (I suppose RotJ has the edge because it was there first, and we were more emotionally involved with Luke than with Rey). Characters don’t share equal time on screen, but then not every character is equally important. Only the continued underuse of R2-D2 (who has essentially been replaced by BB-8, which is like Pikachu being replaced by Pichu) surprised me somewhat; on the other hand C-3PO never had such an important role before. This is clearly his most active (and heroic) time in the saga. For this Threepio fan, that was gold! In the Grand Scheme of Things, I was elated to see that this “final chapter” integrated the previous ones into what does feel like a greater storyline, in a way that was both respectful of the earlier trilogies and didn’t feel like a mere retread. One thing I really didn’t like previously about the character Snoke, for example, is that at first he came across as a cheap copy of the Emperor, and in the next film as a bumbling and pretentious idiot. In this third instalment, he is made into a fitting piece of the puzzle. In fact, that is what I enjoyed the most about this film, despite its breakneck pace and plot adjustment overload: it makes everything fit together quite nicely, and brings it all to a satisfying conclusion. I mean, no Star Wars film yet had me shed a tear at the end, except this one. It was an excellent coda, full of the hope inspired by, well, A New Hope (I hate calling it that).Accusations of fan service are simply unfair. To me, fan service consists in making links or referring things that bring nothing to the plot but satisfy hardcore fans, like the origin of Han Solo’s dice in the movie Solo. In the case of the Rise of Skywalker, bringing back old characters, situations, locales or props just brought a sense of closure and felt entirely justified. I mean, wouldn’t this film have been poorer without {Spoiler: Click to show}that cameo by Wedge ? Dramatically speaking, we get a surprising amount of character development (considering that TRoS is basically almost one long action scene). The friendship between Rey, Finn and Poe develops into something akin to that between our original trio of heroes; the Kylo Ren arc is much better than in the previous film, and the appearances by old characters (be it as voices, Force ghosts or memories) all contributed to plant this movie firmly in the saga. Oh, and this curmudgeon has to admit something... the scene with two characters rejuvenated by the magic of CGI was better than in Rogue One, and hit me right there in the meow-meow. All in all, a pretty good afternoon. It would be difficult to disagree more about a movie. I guess you could like the prequels... then we’d disagree more. I looked in the dictionary under fan service and there was a still photo from Rise of Skywalker. On the plus side it made me laugh my ass off in the first forty-five seconds or so of the actual movie. So that’s something. Who knew that you have to face away from your enemy at some point in every battle involving The Force. Must be what the kewl fighters do. I’m on my phone so I don’t have easy access to Snoopy going Blech! So insert it with your imagination. But at least it’s not Phantom Menace level bad.
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 31, 2019 19:31:47 GMT -5
I came to decide that the main purpose of the new trilogy was to be a stealth remake of the first trilogy, so that kids of today can watch a Star Wars that competes effects-wise with modern movies. A 40 year old film may have great story and characters but just won't hold their attention.This simply isn't true in my experience. I know of several young children (in the 6 and 12-year-old range) who have come to the original trilogy for the first time in recent years and they still find those films just as awesome and exciting as us older folks did back in the late '70s and early '80s. The fact that the effects are somewhat dated -- and, actually, they do still hold up extremely well -- doesn't matter to most kids. I mean, even thinking back to my own childhood, I loved old '60s episodes of Star Trek as a kid, even though I could see that the special effects were woefully dated compared to then-current space franchises like Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica, and so it is for kids today; they'll happily watch the SW original trilogy alongside newer fair, like the Harry Potter films or Guardians of the Galaxy or whatever, because those original SW films have a timeless magic to them. As for the sequel trilogy, I, like dbutler69, feel as if it has cheapened the sacrifices made by the orginal trilogy characters. I'll not be going to see The Rise of Skywalker because I don't care about Rey, Poe, and Finn. In particular, I don't care about Rey's "heroic" journey and I never have. She's simply not a good enough character. Plus, Daisy Ridley's "acting" is so wooden that it makes Kiera Knightly look like Laurence Olivier! I have friends who've seen The Rise of Skywalker and they all think it's a terible film, only slightly better than The Last Jedi. I'm quite prepared to believe them. The Rise of Skywalker, I'm sure, is just another f***ing terrible SW film, that further cheapens and devalues the original trilogy and the franchise as a whole. I've never seen a J.J. Abrams film that I've actually liked, and there's no reason to believe that this one will be any different. It's a shame that after an inspired start with the original trilogy, Lucasfilm, and latterly Disney, had a tremendous oppurtunity to expand the SW franchise and create something really incredible. That potential has been largely wasted. Anecdotal evidence is almost always suspect but my anecdotal evidence agrees with you. My younger sons, currently 24 and 18 grew up on and loved the original trilogy. They both watched the video cassettes of them to death, especially Empire Strikes Back (Nathan loved Yoda). I suspect neither of them have seen any of the prequels more than once apiece and neither of them care about the new films beyond setting them because they’re there.
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 31, 2019 19:39:46 GMT -5
I would have liked Wedge's cameo better if they let him talk to Snap, or included Nora.... he shouldn't have been so cheerful looking when his stepson just died.
|
|
|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 1, 2020 11:35:55 GMT -5
It would be difficult to disagree more about a movie. I guess you could like the prequels... then we’d disagree more. I looked in the dictionary under fan service and there was a still photo from Rise of Skywalker. On the plus side it made me laugh my ass off in the first forty-five seconds or so of the actual movie. So that’s something. Who knew that you have to face away from your enemy at some point in every battle involving The Force. Must be what the kewl fighters do. I’m on my phone so I don’t have easy access to Snoopy going Blech! So insert it with your imagination. But at least it’s not Phantom Menace level bad. See, To me Solo was what fan service is about. A story that didn’t need to be told, with the “origin” of things like Han’s dice, bringing back Darth Maul even though only fans of the cartoons would understand how he wasn’t dead, or the terrible notion that Han Solo is the one who provided the funds to kickstart the rebellion. Not that the show wasn’t a fun ride, but as a fan I was wondering “why did this need to be shown?” throughout the movie. With The Rise of Skywalker, every reference to the earlier trilogies was fitting, both to tie up loose ends or bring about a sense of closure. If there were continuity bits that were targeted at the fans of the extended universe, they weren’t distracting or intrusive (as I didn’t even notice them, if they were there at all). As for kewl fighters, well, yeah, sure. This is a spectacle. Characters do silly things like crouching with their back to their opponent, jump around while handling dangerous things like lightsabers, fly spaceships inside cramped structures, deflect laser beams with swords, and wave their hands around while straining as if they were pushing a Lincoln log. It’s all part of the show! (My dad would have laughed at such antics, saying “Mandrake made a hypnotic gesture”.) On an unrelated point:, several plot points were seemingly lifted from Dune. This continues a long-lived Star Wars tradition, and besides... if you’re gonna steal something, steal from the best!
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 1, 2020 12:25:40 GMT -5
It would be difficult to disagree more about a movie. I guess you could like the prequels... then we’d disagree more. I looked in the dictionary under fan service and there was a still photo from Rise of Skywalker. On the plus side it made me laugh my ass off in the first forty-five seconds or so of the actual movie. So that’s something. Who knew that you have to face away from your enemy at some point in every battle involving The Force. Must be what the kewl fighters do. I’m on my phone so I don’t have easy access to Snoopy going Blech! So insert it with your imagination. But at least it’s not Phantom Menace level bad. See, To me Solo was what fan service is about. A story that didn’t need to be told, with the “origin” of things like Han’s dice, bringing back Darth Maul even though only fans of the cartoons would understand how he wasn’t dead, or the terrible notion that Han Solo is the one who provided the funds to kickstart the rebellion. Not that the show wasn’t a fun ride, but as a fan I was wondering “why did this need to be shown?” throughout the movie. With The Rise of Skywalker, every reference to the earlier trilogies was fitting, both to tie up loose ends or bring about a sense of closure. If there were continuity bits that were targeted at the fans of the extended universe, they weren’t distracting or intrusive (as I didn’t even notice them, if they were there at all). As for kewl fighters, well, yeah, sure. This is a spectacle. Characters do silly things like crouching with their back to their opponent, jump around while handling dangerous things like lightsabers, fly spaceships inside cramped structures, deflect laser beams with swords, and wave their hands around while straining as if they were pushing a Lincoln log. It’s all part of the show! (My dad would have laughed at such antics, saying “Mandrake made a hypnotic gesture”.) On an unrelated point:, several plot points were seemingly lifted from Dune. This continues a long-lived Star Wars tradition, and besides... if you’re gonna steal something, steal from the best! I’ll go ahead and disagree that everything was in service to the story. A bit hard to do without spoilers but... Let’s go ahead and shoehorn in a token shot of Ewoks and Jawas because... reasons. Fans have bitched on the Internet that Chewie didn’t get a medal. We’ll just have an arbitrary character give him one. We better change most of the stuff that happened in the last movie because a vocal minority of internet nerds whined. The main character isn’t “special”... let’s bust out the oldest trope in storytelling. Internet trolls don’t like a particular character... we'll sideline the character by having it “study.” Classic character makes a noble sacrifice for the cause...eh... it doesn’t matter... we'll deus ex machina it back to the status quo. Coming directly on the heels of another fake-out death and who cares. Instead of building up a Big Bad we'll retread one. We won’t actually explain it or make it interesting. We'll just do it. Blech!!!
|
|
|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 1, 2020 14:04:33 GMT -5
See, To me Solo was what fan service is about. A story that didn’t need to be told, with the “origin” of things like Han’s dice, bringing back Darth Maul even though only fans of the cartoons would understand how he wasn’t dead, or the terrible notion that Han Solo is the one who provided the funds to kickstart the rebellion. Not that the show wasn’t a fun ride, but as a fan I was wondering “why did this need to be shown?” throughout the movie. With The Rise of Skywalker, every reference to the earlier trilogies was fitting, both to tie up loose ends or bring about a sense of closure. If there were continuity bits that were targeted at the fans of the extended universe, they weren’t distracting or intrusive (as I didn’t even notice them, if they were there at all). As for kewl fighters, well, yeah, sure. This is a spectacle. Characters do silly things like crouching with their back to their opponent, jump around while handling dangerous things like lightsabers, fly spaceships inside cramped structures, deflect laser beams with swords, and wave their hands around while straining as if they were pushing a Lincoln log. It’s all part of the show! (My dad would have laughed at such antics, saying “Mandrake made a hypnotic gesture”.) On an unrelated point:, several plot points were seemingly lifted from Dune. This continues a long-lived Star Wars tradition, and besides... if you’re gonna steal something, steal from the best! I’ll go ahead and disagree that everything was in service to the story. A bit hard to do without spoilers but... Let’s go ahead and shoehorn in a token shot of Ewoks and Jawas because... reasons. Fans have bitched on the Internet that Chewie didn’t get a medal. We’ll just have an arbitrary character give him one. Sure. Or... Leia just passed away, her oldest friend is devastated, and someone close to them gives him the medal she clutched when she died, a memory of much happier times and of their earlier success together. It might please some fans who b***d about the medal in the original film, but it makes sense. I would phrase it somewhat differently, personally: “we better change most of the stuff that the farce of a movie that preceded this one did because it made no sense whatsoever, as was pointed out by Star Wars fans and casual observers alike”. That the character isn’t someone special would have been very cool, and it was actually the case with Luke Skywalker himself before he was retconned into being Darth Vader’s son and the Skywalker family was shoehorned into being so central to the fate of the galaxy. The problem with Rey being a nobody is that The Force Awakens clearly shows that she is not. Not only is she extremely sensitive to the Force (which, granted, could be the case of anyone), she *knows* how to use it. I mean, how many people do we know who, out of the blue, would concentrate and tell a stromtrooper “you will release my bonds and drop your weapon”? How many would get contacted by Jedi ghosts when touching Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber? Agreed, Rey being the scion of an important lineage is old-school, but that’s not the reason why Johnson’s re-write was offensive; it has nothing to do with his story not living up to fans’ expectations. It had everything to do with his contradicting the story that was being told up to that point. It was on the level of Bobby Ewing walking out of the shower, still alive. Internet trolls are like asteroids: they do not concern me. Rose, as a supporting character in a useless side quest in The Last Jedi, was O.K... Kind of like Mon Mothma, Admiral Akbar or Wicket... but she never grew into someone who seemed to be particularly crucial to the plot. Her absence might have been due to a reaction to online comments, or to Abrams saying “that’s not the character I want to focus on”. Shall we attribute the paucity of R2-D2 appearances to internet trolls too, or to directorial choices that meant more time would be devoted to Finn, Poe, Rey and Ben, who were cast as the major figures of this sequel trilogy? (Not saying that internet trolls don’t exist or didn’t behave in a ridiculous way when it comes to Rose. But the character, while undeserving of so much vitriol, was a bit redundant when the “regular person with no super power” slot was already filled by Finn.) Some would say that a tale of ultimate redemption involving self-sacrifice beats a tale of plain self-sacrifice, and actually enhances the story. (Well, by “some” I mean me... but I doubt I’m alone on this. I thought that sacrifice A just came out of the blue, but sacrifice B was actually moving in the way it helped bring a character arc to a satisfying end). I was extremely dubious about the direction the chapter was taking when the trailer had that clip of Palpatine’s voice. However, I already thought that building up Kylo Ren to be the next Vader was lazy and unimaginative, and boring to boot. The initial conflict within him had potential, but was wasted by The Last Jedi, just like Shira Bree was wasted by the comic-book when it decided to turn her into another armour-wearing villain. As for Snoke, who cares? I mean, who remembers Brazor, the bad guy who replaced Ming the merciless? If a new vilain is just the old one in new shoes, the new dude will always feel like a cheap knock-off. The way Abrams went at it, at the very least Palpatine finally deserves the title of “phantom menace”. And rather than a trilogy chronicling “yet more fighting between the rebellion and an empire that keeps coming back again and again like an Energizer bunny”, the sequels become an integral part of the overall saga, dealimg with the enemy that was there from the start. From a storytelling point of view, I think it adds more weight to this chapter, even if there is a feeling of “been there, done that” to the climax. But then, it’s typical of franchises and sort of hard to avoid.
|
|
|
Post by sunofdarkchild on Jan 2, 2020 7:32:56 GMT -5
I cannot fathom how anyone could like Rise of Skywalker as anything more than a guilty pleasure. Its editing is atrocious. Its pacing is ridiculous. Its plot is a lazy macguffin hunt at its best and often descends into complete and utter stupidity. It backtracks on every risk or big decision it makes, from Chewie to 3PO, killing all stakes. It's pretty at times, but as a movie and a story it's frankly horrible, by far the worst of the sequel trilogy. and I already had problems with the previous movies. I might even put it below all the prequels. It's definitely the worst movie I've ever paid money to see (my parents paid for the prequels).
There's nothing wrong with fan service, but you've got to make a decent story to put the fan-service into. Having all fan-service and no story is just bad fanfiction.
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 2, 2020 10:20:50 GMT -5
Can I just add that the entirety of the plot, such as it was, felt like a video game. Follow each puzzle piece to the next challenge fight. Fight. Follow the puzzle piece the the next challenge fight. Fight. Rinse. Repeat.
|
|
|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 2, 2020 11:14:13 GMT -5
I cannot fathom how anyone could like Rise of Skywalker as anything more than a guilty pleasure. Well, my friend, isn’t any Star Wars film since the first two a guilty pleasure? It’s been milking the nostalgia factor for 40 plus years, adding layer upon layer of nonsensical mythology to what was originally a pretty straightforward homage to naive SF serials of the mid XXth century. The pacing is indeed hectic to the point of ADD, but I’ll take that over a two hours slow-speed space chase any day. Indeed? More stupid than being chased by a fleet of bad guys who were quite able to hit us five minutes ago but now can’t anymore because reasons, more stupid than saying a ship that’s within eyesight is “out of range” of laser beams, more stupid than sending a janitor and his watcher to a faraway casino planet in the hope of recruiting a computer hacker who *might*, should they all return in time, be able to disable some tracking device aboard the main enemy ship before the latter finally realizes that all it has to do is jump ahead of its prey to stop it for good? More stupid than have an admiral refuse to reveal her secret plan (which is essentially “all hands, abandon ship”)even in the face of mutiny? As they say, our mileage may vary. I agree with that sentiment, and believe it applies fully to the movie Solo. In the case of The Rise of Skywalker, what one calls fan service I would call providing a suitable conclusion to the story begun in The Force Awakens, relying on elements already established. Did that story need to be told? Well, the entire sequel trilogy was superfluous and a cash grab by Disney, and I would have been fine without it ever being produced... but the new arc needed a proper conclusion, and this movie provides that.
|
|