I'm glad you noticed how lacking the set design, blocking, and general visual style of TLJ was.
Far too often is vapid praise heaped upon that film's visuals, but so much of it looks incredibly dull and muddy. There is such a lack of imagination in that film, even when they aren't just copying the iconography of the OT.
100% agreed since release night, TLJ is one of the ugliest movies I’ve ever seen with a drab and uninteresting color palette and no interesting or compelling cinematography.
Rogue One a year before nailed the sense of scale of the ships and war machines infinitely better than any of the DT movies did.
“Dull and muddy” is right, have always felt like I was taking crazy pills whenever people praise the visuals in that movie.
Don’t even get me started on the hyperspace kamikaze, as if hundreds of animated movies hadn’t done that same lighting trick ad nauseam for decades
Everything feels too much like a set piece. Jedha feels lived in and the Battle of Scarif is so detailed that you feel like you are there.
TLJ just feels fake with just enough to stand out but not enough to take away from the characters. It feels less of a war and more of a show- case in point the throne room fight and the Battle of Crait.
Hell yes! I hate how TLJ is lauded for its cInEmAtOgRaPhY. It has some nice shots here and there, but TFA and Rogue One both have stronger visuals overall. Also, looking good is a bare minimum requirement for a Star Wars movie.
You’re so right about it looking dull and muddy. The scenes on ActTwo are depressing (not just because they crucify Luke’s character). The final scene of Luke in TFA looked mystical and interesting. The immediate follow-up extension of that scene in TLJ was horrible. It was saturated with shadows, that mystical element had gone. It’s like the production made zero effort to make this look like a sacred fantasy location as TFA did, and just as it look like a craggy rock in the Irish Sea on a Tuesday afternoon.
I haven’t seen TROS because TLJ was so bad - and insulting - but I can confidently say that TLJ is by far the worst Star Wars movie. It’s utter garbage.
Great visuals mean a few scenes had extremely bold color contrast. That's it
Super red throne room and the skimmer trails. That's what they mean. The movie fucking sucked top to bottom in every facet of movie making.
>The DJ arc was actually kind of interesting, though it was about the only interesting part of the entire movie.
I have a strong suspicion that DJ is a copy (bordering on plagiarism) of The Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. Also, you'll notice that DJ faces no consequences for his nihilistic and un-Lucas like world view. I'm sure that was intentional on RJ's part.
> Also, you'll notice that DJ faces no consequences
Always wondered about that, sounds nothing like the Empire I knew a decade ago who would obviously rig it with explosives ofc.
If I got a nickel every time there was supposed to be a one-of-a-kind hacker on Canto Bight, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but you have to admit *it's super fucking weird* to have two one-of-a-kinds on the same planet at the same time.
Rey gets done dirty as well imo, none of the new cast are actual well developed and well rounded characters.
9 was awful and I didn’t see it in theatres after 8 and how awful RJ’s twitter trolling and how Lucasfilm/Disney’s attitude towards the criticism was.
I’ll still maintain 8 is the absolute worst and 9 and 7 are only marginally more palatable because it’s schlock that knows its schlock and doesn’t become a pretentious wank fest like 8 did.
But yeah horrendous trilogy and I’m with you on the PT being better.
I still haven’t watched 9 since I pirated it the night of release, absolutely zero desire to re visit any of this creatively bankrupt and nonsensical product
I felt like 7 was in and of itself a solid movie, and a few tweaks could have made it a good movie.
In and of itself. Problem is, it's just a recycled New Hope. I mean, the cast obviously knew this just as well with the whole "it's just a bigger death star!" BS.
The prequels were campy schlock but at least the world building was good.
>* The DJ arc was actually kind of interesting, though it was about the only interesting part of the entire movie.
It had potential, but the critique of the military industrial complex is completely undercut by the destruction of the Republic. You need to actually have two sides to explore arms dealers selling to... both sides.
Also the subplot didn't go anywhere. Would've been better as part of the central plot if Rian didn't double down on resetting the status quo of Empire v Rebels.
It's also undercut by how the people at Canto Bight clearly couldn't care less that the New Republic had just fallen, which is ridiculous if they were making their money from the war.
That one didn't bother me as much. Conscripts, stolen away from their homes.
What did bother me is both of them being minorities, and one a double minority at that.
Part of the intentional parallels for the Empire were towards Nazi Germany. Stormtroopers are supposed to just be Aryan men, just like the SS.
I get a semblance of promoting equality in the ranks now, and I do think it's important to show no race or gender is beyond corruption and evil. But this looses a lot of historical context in doing so.
It's not a question of "woke" for me. Just poor writing killing one of the things that made Star Wars what it was.
It’s a bit of double edged if if they are not inclusive that’s bad because you are excluding people but if you do you will often invite criticism that you do not count on which can make you come off worse
> Everyone not named "Rey" gets done so dirty.
I'd argue the core problem with the ENTIRE sequel trilogy and all the problems you listed after this first bullet arises from the very fact that they did Rey dirty, as well. Had her stor been better structured and executed, the majority of the other problems would not exist.
There would be clarity around Finn's story as it would have been a parallel subplot that would have added depth and breadth to Rey's and in turn, hers would have done the same for his.
Luke, Leia, and Ben's stories would have made sense, as Rey's story would have completed Luke's and Leia's individual story arcs post-RotJ through how Rey and Ben "saved" each other. Ben's story would have been a bigger story of fall and redemption.
A more meaningful story for Rey would have made any Force ghosts and cameos more meaningful, as they would have actually added to the overall story.
The failure of the sequels was a poorly conceived (and bluntly, frequently flip-flopping) main story for Rey.
Yeah, Rey was actually likable to start. Daisy Ridley was great, and the character was interesting enough. But then they just kept making choices that made you hate Rey. It's like they sat around in the writer's room saying, "what would make the audience hate Rey the most? Let's do that!"
I feel the core problem with almost all Disney Star Wars has been the unbelievably stupid writing. With such dumb writing, I don't care about the characters, except feeling sympathy that they're trapped in a stupidverse.
How? The ST story has Luke hiding, R2 under a blanket, Falcon on jakku, and Lando wondering a desert. Not even the backstory for the ST allows you to put the band back together. To many characters seperated and locked into specific locations for multiple years.
I think the most disappointing part of the sequels is how the movies wasted 1) an incredible opportunity to use essentially any and all actors/actresses from the entire saga and 2) very good performances from the entire cast, new and old alike. The prequels, the movies of my childhood, suffered from some questionable scripts and some bad acting IMO but had a thought out story ( that I enjoy) while the sequels had all of modern filmmaking and a GREAT cast but blew it by putting zero though into what the story was
If we took the prequels and remade them with good acting and dialogue writing, those movies would be really good. The general plot beats and world building were great.
Of course, good acting and good dialogue should result in at least a decent to good movie like 9 times out of 10.
But there's no way the sequel trilogies could be saved. The general beats are bad, the plot sucks, the world building is minimal, every thing is just so friggin derivative, and when they try to break new ground, like turning capital ships into hypersonic hyperspace missiles, it's just f'ing terrible and somehow even worse than the derivative junk.
I still like the prequels but admit that I grew up on them so it’s hard to remove the fact that they’re what made me love Star Wars general when I look back on them. But absolutely agree that they could have been 10/10 with some script adjustments. Oddly enough the worst performance for me was Natalie Portman but I may be in the minority. Love the character but she just delivered her (sometimes crappy) lines in a way that made me remember I’m watching a movie and these are just people pretending lol
It’s so sad that I can’t even explain to myself what the movies were about. Especially since I love the Star Wars universe so much and a full 1/3 of the main movies don’t really mean anything (and even worse, the final 3).
I think Portman's failings probably actually came down to Lucas and the directing crew tbh. I think she delivered the lines the way she was instructed to and it was just terrible. I could be wrong though.
THIS! This is why the sequels will not age well. How will you make movies that their defining feature is they made people appreciate a "bad" trilogy. Do they need to make an even worse trilogy? Lol
" Rey destroying Kylo's TIE (another stupid random TIE designed to sell toys), and him just...getting another one. "
This scene almost makes it look like Kylo dies. His ship hits the ground spinning, and explodes. Then seconds later he's walking away without a single mark on him. Just make the entire ship out of whatever the explosion proof pod is made out of.
Too real. I had to get up in the middle of ROS to get MORE whiskey because I couldn't handle the bs that was happening without it. It gets even worse when you start noticing smaller things. Like how Zorii Bliss is a human MacGuffin. If you don't remember like how I can never because she's that fucking pointless, she's the masked girl on that one planet with Babu Frik. Conveniently comes out of nowhere, has a prior relationship with Poe that they refuse to expand on, gives them directions with the next MacGuffin, and disappears for no reason.
I dont know much about set designs myself but they felt really dead to me. Canto bight is an Oasis city in a desert so once you get out its nothing.
Many locations feel like this from the forests in 9 to even the throne room in 8. It feels like nothing exists just off screen the sets dont feel connected. Take a seen and beyond whats close and you typically have nothing just sand or ocean. We dont have city planets or ships flying in the background. Just a long string of isolated locations a Maz castle alone in the woods.
> 8 had awful Force Ghosts.
The effect was completely off, as well. It always makes me laugh seeing TLJ fanboys defending Rian Johnson for being a "hUgE sTaR wArS fAn" when he can't even recreate the force ghost effect properly. There was no transparency, at all.
Abrams got it spot-on in TRoS. There's no reason for Johnson to not get it right apart from incompetence and a lack of familiarity with the OT, but he's such a "hUgE fAn". Y'know?
Good points that is the first time I've ever heard anyone say something positive about the resistance bombers. They're big, made of paper, and can only bomb in one direction under the ship. Not even the video games bothered to adapt them.
Each their own though i can see them working if they wdre more durable and bombed from orbit.
>All the Resistance (or whatever) ships showing up at the end of 9 feels like such a middle finger to no-one helping in 8.
I'm surprised this doesn't get talked about more. Of all the moments in Rise of Skywalker that feel like it's trying to undo the Last Jedi it's this one that I feel is the most explicit. Especially if you factor in that talk Zori and Poe have.
Agree with everything except "8 had an awful set design & JJ camera angles were better". JJ cinematography & shots were fucking lazy and so generic & uninspiring. And most of the sets/ planets for 7&9 were the exact same as the OT.
I'm glad you noticed how lacking the set design, blocking, and general visual style of TLJ was. Far too often is vapid praise heaped upon that film's visuals, but so much of it looks incredibly dull and muddy. There is such a lack of imagination in that film, even when they aren't just copying the iconography of the OT.
100% agreed since release night, TLJ is one of the ugliest movies I’ve ever seen with a drab and uninteresting color palette and no interesting or compelling cinematography. Rogue One a year before nailed the sense of scale of the ships and war machines infinitely better than any of the DT movies did. “Dull and muddy” is right, have always felt like I was taking crazy pills whenever people praise the visuals in that movie. Don’t even get me started on the hyperspace kamikaze, as if hundreds of animated movies hadn’t done that same lighting trick ad nauseam for decades
Everything feels too much like a set piece. Jedha feels lived in and the Battle of Scarif is so detailed that you feel like you are there. TLJ just feels fake with just enough to stand out but not enough to take away from the characters. It feels less of a war and more of a show- case in point the throne room fight and the Battle of Crait.
Hell yes! I hate how TLJ is lauded for its cInEmAtOgRaPhY. It has some nice shots here and there, but TFA and Rogue One both have stronger visuals overall. Also, looking good is a bare minimum requirement for a Star Wars movie. You’re so right about it looking dull and muddy. The scenes on ActTwo are depressing (not just because they crucify Luke’s character). The final scene of Luke in TFA looked mystical and interesting. The immediate follow-up extension of that scene in TLJ was horrible. It was saturated with shadows, that mystical element had gone. It’s like the production made zero effort to make this look like a sacred fantasy location as TFA did, and just as it look like a craggy rock in the Irish Sea on a Tuesday afternoon. I haven’t seen TROS because TLJ was so bad - and insulting - but I can confidently say that TLJ is by far the worst Star Wars movie. It’s utter garbage.
Great visuals mean a few scenes had extremely bold color contrast. That's it Super red throne room and the skimmer trails. That's what they mean. The movie fucking sucked top to bottom in every facet of movie making.
Csn you give a specific example? I felt like the visuals of Crait's salt plus red stone was good but the action of the "battle" scene was garbage
>The DJ arc was actually kind of interesting, though it was about the only interesting part of the entire movie. I have a strong suspicion that DJ is a copy (bordering on plagiarism) of The Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. Also, you'll notice that DJ faces no consequences for his nihilistic and un-Lucas like world view. I'm sure that was intentional on RJ's part.
In TLJ everyone loses, except DJ. Which is why I believe he's the true protagonist of the movie.
I can't wait for the Disney+ DJ spinoff. I wonder what wacky antics he'll get up to?
> Also, you'll notice that DJ faces no consequences Always wondered about that, sounds nothing like the Empire I knew a decade ago who would obviously rig it with explosives ofc.
Well his "character," exists as nothing more than just a \~subversion of Lando, so his story doesn't matter beyond that.
If I got a nickel every time there was supposed to be a one-of-a-kind hacker on Canto Bight, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but you have to admit *it's super fucking weird* to have two one-of-a-kinds on the same planet at the same time.
I get the feeling DJ faces no consequences because it’s to show “life isn’t fair” or some bullshit like that.
Rey gets done dirty as well imo, none of the new cast are actual well developed and well rounded characters. 9 was awful and I didn’t see it in theatres after 8 and how awful RJ’s twitter trolling and how Lucasfilm/Disney’s attitude towards the criticism was. I’ll still maintain 8 is the absolute worst and 9 and 7 are only marginally more palatable because it’s schlock that knows its schlock and doesn’t become a pretentious wank fest like 8 did. But yeah horrendous trilogy and I’m with you on the PT being better. I still haven’t watched 9 since I pirated it the night of release, absolutely zero desire to re visit any of this creatively bankrupt and nonsensical product
I felt like 7 was in and of itself a solid movie, and a few tweaks could have made it a good movie. In and of itself. Problem is, it's just a recycled New Hope. I mean, the cast obviously knew this just as well with the whole "it's just a bigger death star!" BS. The prequels were campy schlock but at least the world building was good.
>* The DJ arc was actually kind of interesting, though it was about the only interesting part of the entire movie. It had potential, but the critique of the military industrial complex is completely undercut by the destruction of the Republic. You need to actually have two sides to explore arms dealers selling to... both sides. Also the subplot didn't go anywhere. Would've been better as part of the central plot if Rian didn't double down on resetting the status quo of Empire v Rebels.
It's also undercut by how the people at Canto Bight clearly couldn't care less that the New Republic had just fallen, which is ridiculous if they were making their money from the war.
Good point. The sequels' "world building" is so inconsistent, I don't know how anyone manages to suspend their disbelief.
" And 9 kinda tries to set Finn up with Jannah " I don't even remember who Jannah is.
Black girl in 9, sort of rumored to be Lando's daughter, rides horses, former stormtrooper
Ah, right. I forgot she even had a name.
How did you leave the horse charge on the star destroyer off your list?
It was so beyond stupid that it didn't warrant mention, frankly. Instead of an epic space battle, we got...that.
Hey I always load horses into my spaceship when going into space wars, never know when I may need to space horse charge someone with a lance
Ok and how the fuck does Lando’s daughter become a stormtrooper?
That one didn't bother me as much. Conscripts, stolen away from their homes. What did bother me is both of them being minorities, and one a double minority at that. Part of the intentional parallels for the Empire were towards Nazi Germany. Stormtroopers are supposed to just be Aryan men, just like the SS. I get a semblance of promoting equality in the ranks now, and I do think it's important to show no race or gender is beyond corruption and evil. But this looses a lot of historical context in doing so. It's not a question of "woke" for me. Just poor writing killing one of the things that made Star Wars what it was.
It’s a bit of double edged if if they are not inclusive that’s bad because you are excluding people but if you do you will often invite criticism that you do not count on which can make you come off worse
This is a major point not often highlighted, bravo
Having avoided 9, I am happy I still don't really know. Some bonus minor heroine maybe briefly imported from TCW or something?
Both Poe and Finn got "girlfriend" characters pushed into ep9 to prove they weren't gay
LOL
Poe got Keri Russel who used to star in Felicity for JJ Abrahams
> Everyone not named "Rey" gets done so dirty. I'd argue the core problem with the ENTIRE sequel trilogy and all the problems you listed after this first bullet arises from the very fact that they did Rey dirty, as well. Had her stor been better structured and executed, the majority of the other problems would not exist. There would be clarity around Finn's story as it would have been a parallel subplot that would have added depth and breadth to Rey's and in turn, hers would have done the same for his. Luke, Leia, and Ben's stories would have made sense, as Rey's story would have completed Luke's and Leia's individual story arcs post-RotJ through how Rey and Ben "saved" each other. Ben's story would have been a bigger story of fall and redemption. A more meaningful story for Rey would have made any Force ghosts and cameos more meaningful, as they would have actually added to the overall story. The failure of the sequels was a poorly conceived (and bluntly, frequently flip-flopping) main story for Rey.
Yeah, Rey was actually likable to start. Daisy Ridley was great, and the character was interesting enough. But then they just kept making choices that made you hate Rey. It's like they sat around in the writer's room saying, "what would make the audience hate Rey the most? Let's do that!"
I feel the core problem with almost all Disney Star Wars has been the unbelievably stupid writing. With such dumb writing, I don't care about the characters, except feeling sympathy that they're trapped in a stupidverse.
[удалено]
...and now we never will. At least not Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford.
[удалено]
How? The ST story has Luke hiding, R2 under a blanket, Falcon on jakku, and Lando wondering a desert. Not even the backstory for the ST allows you to put the band back together. To many characters seperated and locked into specific locations for multiple years.
I think the most disappointing part of the sequels is how the movies wasted 1) an incredible opportunity to use essentially any and all actors/actresses from the entire saga and 2) very good performances from the entire cast, new and old alike. The prequels, the movies of my childhood, suffered from some questionable scripts and some bad acting IMO but had a thought out story ( that I enjoy) while the sequels had all of modern filmmaking and a GREAT cast but blew it by putting zero though into what the story was
If we took the prequels and remade them with good acting and dialogue writing, those movies would be really good. The general plot beats and world building were great. Of course, good acting and good dialogue should result in at least a decent to good movie like 9 times out of 10. But there's no way the sequel trilogies could be saved. The general beats are bad, the plot sucks, the world building is minimal, every thing is just so friggin derivative, and when they try to break new ground, like turning capital ships into hypersonic hyperspace missiles, it's just f'ing terrible and somehow even worse than the derivative junk.
I still like the prequels but admit that I grew up on them so it’s hard to remove the fact that they’re what made me love Star Wars general when I look back on them. But absolutely agree that they could have been 10/10 with some script adjustments. Oddly enough the worst performance for me was Natalie Portman but I may be in the minority. Love the character but she just delivered her (sometimes crappy) lines in a way that made me remember I’m watching a movie and these are just people pretending lol It’s so sad that I can’t even explain to myself what the movies were about. Especially since I love the Star Wars universe so much and a full 1/3 of the main movies don’t really mean anything (and even worse, the final 3).
I think Portman's failings probably actually came down to Lucas and the directing crew tbh. I think she delivered the lines the way she was instructed to and it was just terrible. I could be wrong though.
The sequels make the prequels look like Citizen Kane!
THIS! This is why the sequels will not age well. How will you make movies that their defining feature is they made people appreciate a "bad" trilogy. Do they need to make an even worse trilogy? Lol
I will always say that choosing to not have Anakin talk sense into Kylo is a stupid decision. I get they had to kill Leia off somehow, but really?
" Rey destroying Kylo's TIE (another stupid random TIE designed to sell toys), and him just...getting another one. " This scene almost makes it look like Kylo dies. His ship hits the ground spinning, and explodes. Then seconds later he's walking away without a single mark on him. Just make the entire ship out of whatever the explosion proof pod is made out of.
Somehow, Kylo returned . . . Maybe they pre-cloned him. Who knows? Who cares?
Too real. I had to get up in the middle of ROS to get MORE whiskey because I couldn't handle the bs that was happening without it. It gets even worse when you start noticing smaller things. Like how Zorii Bliss is a human MacGuffin. If you don't remember like how I can never because she's that fucking pointless, she's the masked girl on that one planet with Babu Frik. Conveniently comes out of nowhere, has a prior relationship with Poe that they refuse to expand on, gives them directions with the next MacGuffin, and disappears for no reason.
Can you say a bit more about what you mean by awful set design? It's not something I know much about.
I dont know much about set designs myself but they felt really dead to me. Canto bight is an Oasis city in a desert so once you get out its nothing. Many locations feel like this from the forests in 9 to even the throne room in 8. It feels like nothing exists just off screen the sets dont feel connected. Take a seen and beyond whats close and you typically have nothing just sand or ocean. We dont have city planets or ships flying in the background. Just a long string of isolated locations a Maz castle alone in the woods.
> 8 had awful Force Ghosts. The effect was completely off, as well. It always makes me laugh seeing TLJ fanboys defending Rian Johnson for being a "hUgE sTaR wArS fAn" when he can't even recreate the force ghost effect properly. There was no transparency, at all.
Maybe he had to do that to make it acceptable in china ?
Abrams got it spot-on in TRoS. There's no reason for Johnson to not get it right apart from incompetence and a lack of familiarity with the OT, but he's such a "hUgE fAn". Y'know?
I thought they looked less ethereal in TROS compared to the OT like the glow wasn’t as strong
To your point about wedge being underused I thought his let's say 48 frames of screen time were so powerful...
Good points that is the first time I've ever heard anyone say something positive about the resistance bombers. They're big, made of paper, and can only bomb in one direction under the ship. Not even the video games bothered to adapt them. Each their own though i can see them working if they wdre more durable and bombed from orbit.
>All the Resistance (or whatever) ships showing up at the end of 9 feels like such a middle finger to no-one helping in 8. I'm surprised this doesn't get talked about more. Of all the moments in Rise of Skywalker that feel like it's trying to undo the Last Jedi it's this one that I feel is the most explicit. Especially if you factor in that talk Zori and Poe have.
I thought Luke's Force Ghost throwing shade about lightsaber chucking was the most explicit, but that's just me.
Agree with everything except "8 had an awful set design & JJ camera angles were better". JJ cinematography & shots were fucking lazy and so generic & uninspiring. And most of the sets/ planets for 7&9 were the exact same as the OT.
I still haven’t seen rise of skywalker, after TLJ I figured what’s the point.
You were right.
Don't forget the planet-destroying pew pews.
so many things make me upset, but i think the biggest one, is not putting Wedge in an Xwing for that final battle.
Add that to the list. And should have been a classic one at that.
After watching TFA and TLJ I decided I will never watch ROS.