Star Wars Star Wars Discussion Thread - LET THE PAST D-! Oh, wait, nevermind

[Skallagrim]

It ultimately boils down to personal preference. What can you tolerate, and what really grinds your gears? To me personally, TLJ is the single worst experience I've ever had at the cinema. Purely as a film, though, it's more coherent than TRoS. And someone who can't stand bland imitations (e.g. TFA) but can accept films aimed at wrecking themes and characters for the sake of it (e.g. TLJ), Abrams will be the worst instead.

My problem with Johnson is that, as far as I can tell, he's an insufferably smug jerk with an absurdly inflated sense of his own skill and intelligence. Abrams, by contrast, is just a hack who relies of ripping off others and artificially creating mysteries with no substance or pay-off. I don't like what Abrams does, but he's not a dick about it. Despite the fact that he's a hack, he does appear to be a decent human being. Johnson? Not so much.

My problem with Johnson's whole attitude can be illustrated with a simple example. When filming TFA, Abrams wrote ""JJ was here" on an unseen bit of the life-size model of the Falcon. When filming TLJ, Johnson happily crossed that out, and wrote "RIAN was here" underneath. That's a dick move. Nobody I can like or respect would ever do that. That's the difference here. Abrams imitates others, and often poorly. But Johson takes perverse glee in erasing others. In destroying what they like. He's a jerk, and I hate jerks.

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

Still not quite as bad as Solo, which scored the epic anti-achievement of producing an outright box office bomb out of a highly anticipated blockbuster from the biggest selling movie franchise ever. Depending on what metric you use, Solo may have outright tied with John Carter for being the biggest money loss in Hollywood history, and when you factor in that it was attached to a franchise that should have all but guaranteed success, it is quite seriously the worst box office bomb ever.

As disappointing as TLJ and TRoS were, Solo is the only Star Wars movie that can be objectively described as an absolute disaster. If Star Wars was *any* less of an established franchise than it is, Solo would likely have ended it forever.

It would've helped if 1) the first producers decided to treat the movie seriously rather than the parody they had in mind, and 2) TLJ didn't leave such a sour taste in peoples' mouths that the Star Wars brand became less appealing.

But Johson takes perverse glee in erasing others. In destroying what they like. He's a jerk, and I hate jerks.

He also sniffs his own farts to get high on them.

 

[SuperS4]

We can actually Blame JJ for TLJ, as Everything Rian did was following JJ...

Also, I will say Solo is still on of my top movies.

TLJ has the best cinamtogrphy of the ST though

Pretty sure either Rian or JJ came out and said that Rian basically ignored the original script that JJ had written for what became TLJ.

Meaning yeah, the most you can blame JJ for is either not directing it himself, or not using big bold letters telling Rian "Follow the fucking script you punce"

From what I recall reading, the general "flow" of the ST was "set", but otherwise. when Rian took over in TLJ, he rewrote/ignored the draft that JJ had written(as he apparently had written drafts for both VIII and IX)

 

[Zachowon]

Pretty sure either Rian or JJ came out and said that Rian basically ignored the original script that JJ had written for what became TLJ.

Meaning yeah, the most you can blame JJ for is either not directing it himself, or not using big bold letters telling Rian "Follow the fucking script you punce"

From what I recall reading, the general "flow" of the ST was "set", but otherwise. when Rian took over in TLJ, he rewrote/ignored the draft that JJ had written(as he apparently had written drafts for both VIII and IX)

I have heard a lot of things and I don't know what is true anymore

 

[SuperS4]

I have heard a lot of things and I don't know what is true anymore

Rian Johnson Ignored J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: Episode VIII Script

More and more details are coming out regarding why Star Wars: The Last Jedi was such a failure.

cosmicbook.news

So it was Ridley stating it. While we can argue whether she's right or not. Star of the film saying "oh yeah, the new director just ignored and rewrote the entire script" seems... pretty important. I see no reason to doubt what she said myself.

 

[Zachowon]

I still think it is an amazing Star wars movie.

 

[Spartan303]

Me thinks the Sequel Trilogy is gonna get Retconned.

Me Hopes its going to get Retconned.

 

[Skallagrim]

Me thinks the Sequel Trilogy is gonna get Retconned.

Me Hopes its going to get Retconned.

Most probably, they're just going to write around it. A sort of 'soft retcon', where they treat the sequels like Dark Empire in the old EU: this meant-to-be-very-important story that ended up not fitting in, and which is officially still part of canon, but just rarely gets referenced directly.

Officially declaring the sequels non-canonical is just going to make those fans who like them (or one or two of them, at any rate) angry, which isn't what they want. People willing to accept the sequels will probably accept new stuff, too, even if it ignores the sequels. But if you chuck out the thing they love, they'll be pissed and walk away. Fewer paying customers! Disney doesn't want that.

The whole 'branching time-lines' idea has more potential. People who say it's too confusing are just talking nonsense, since Star Trek has had outright contradicting mini-EUs since day one. Some of those (e.g. the Rihannsu novels) are still popular even now. And in this instance, we wouldn't be even talking about that. We'd just be dealing with two timelines, caused by an in-univerce divergence. It would allow you to make sequel-related EU stuff for sequel fans, and sequel-overwriting EU stuff for sequel haters. And neither would infringe on the validity of the other. (Whichever one ends up less popular would presumably bleed dry after a while, of course.)

Still, I don't see that happening, either. It would be my preferred solution, because it's both fair to all fans and creatively the most interesting, but I just don't see Disney being that gutsy. So it really seems that they'll just refrain from rocking the boat.

 

[Sailor.X]

Most probably, they're just going to write around it. A sort of 'soft retcon', where they treat the sequels like Dark Empire in the old EU: this meant-to-be-very-important story that ended up not fitting in, and which is officially still part of canon, but just rarely gets referenced directly.

Officially declaring the sequels non-canonical is just going to make those fans who like them (or one or two of them, at any rate) angry, which isn't what they want. People willing to accept the sequels will probably accept new stuff, too, even if it ignores the sequels. But if you chuck out the thing they love, they'll be pissed and walk away. Fewer paying customers! Disney doesn't want that.

The whole 'branching time-lines' idea has more potential. People who say it's too confusing are just talking nonsense, since Star Trek has had outright contradicting mini-EUs since day one. Some of those (e.g. the Rihannsu novels) are still popular even now. And in this instance, we wouldn't be even talking about that. We'd just be dealing with two timelines, caused by an in-univerce divergence. It would allow you to make sequel-related EU stuff for sequel fans, and sequel-overwriting EU stuff for sequel haters. And neither would infringe on the validity of the other. (Whichever one ends up less popular would presumably bleed dry after a while, of course.)

Still, I don't see that happening, either. It would be my preferred solution, because it's both fair to all fans and creatively the most interesting, but I just don't see Disney being that gutsy. So it really seems that they'll just refrain from rocking the boat.

So we are gonna end up with two JJ Timelines. One in Star Trek and one in Star Wars............... I can live with that.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

I would point out that Star Wars has a long history of retconning things, and I don't just mean the infamous "Han shot first" thing.

Many of the biggest and most important plot points in the entire series were retconned into existence -- TESB retconned Vader into being Luke's father, and ROTJ retconned Leia into being Luke's sister. Which honestly makes the Luke-Leia-Han love triangle presented in ANH and TESB pretty squicky, never mind Splinter of the Mind's Eye having Luke and Leia explicitly dating.

Oddly enough, there was a draft scene for TESB where *Vader* tells Luke he has a sister, but that was a setup hook for an Imperial character intended to show up in later films. That was dropped, and of course is completely incompatible with the eventual backstory from the prequel trilogy.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Incidentally, the strong hints at the Luke-Leia-Han love triangle in ANH were almost entirely unscripted and reflected the real-life personal dynamics between Mark, Carrie, and Harrison. That's why it's so much more subtle in ANH than TESB.

 

[Zachowon]

Someone who reviews movie, never seeing SW EP 4, and here is her review

 

[Battlegrinder]

TLJ was not THAT BAD. He went off what he was given by JJ

We can actually Blame JJ for TLJ, as Everything Rian did was following JJ...

So..literally most if not all of what he was doing was following of JJ. The thing is, everyone had their own head cannons about things and when Johnson did not follow them people freaked the fuck out!

Leaving aside the script thing brought up above (because it might not be true, and because JJ's scripts might have sucked given RoS), I'd like to explain your opinion on this a bit more, because while I disagree with the general claim, you're not actually explaining this in sufficient detail that I can actually explain why I disagree, so please elaborate, specifically on the following points that seem to get the most flak:

1. Luke's character
2. Finn's arc being "reset".
3. Canto
4. Holdo vs Poe
5. Hyperspace Ramming

 

[Deleted member 88]

TLJ was my most miserable experience in a movie theatre ever.

 

[Bear Ribs]

One thing I'd like to bring up is how bad the cinematography for TLJ was. It was seriously complete garbage. It has virtually no coverage shots which are fairly important to good cinematography since they establish where everything is. You can pretty clearly see the effects of this lack in TLJ as people teleport about and objects vanish suddenly. F'rex Finn puts his pack down on the ground and starts talking to Rose. Then, somehow, his pack has climbed inside the escape pod all on it's own while he was talking. This is important because his pack being in the pod is Rose's clue that Finn's deserting and she needs to comically taze him because Finn has too much dignity left at this point in the film. But there's no excuse for the pack teleporting, it's just incredibly sloppy directing and the kind of cinematography you'd expect from a student project, or at worst a B movie rather than Star Wars. This happens repeatedly all across the film in various scenes.

Or perhaps I am reversing cause and effect and the lack of coverage shots was an attempt to hide the fact that the director was moving things around to suit individual shots instead of making an effort to have continuity. Either way it's terrible. Still, it gave us some good comedy, who didn't laugh at the guard's glowy knife having to teleport out of his hand mid-shot so that he couldn't stab Rey with it?

 

[f1onagher]

TLJ was my most miserable experience in a movie theatre ever.

It holds a special place in my heart as the first movie I started to dislike in the first ten minutes. I was actually frowning before the first battle scene was over.

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

Rose's clue that Finn's deserting and she needs to comically taze him because Finn has too much dignity left at this point in the film.

See, that's another thing I hated about Rose. Namely that she denies the members of the Resistance the ability to leave. I'm willing to bet that there was no order to detain any deserteurs and she started it on her own because "muh dead sister! muh duty to stay!" and projected that mindset onto any resister.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

See, that's another thing I hated about Rose. Namely that she denies the members of the Resistance the ability to leave. I'm willing to bet that there was no order to detain any deserteurs and she started it on her own because "muh dead sister! muh duty to stay!" and projected that mindset onto any resister.

*shrugs* The legal status of the Rebel Alliance and Resistance are both pretty questionable anyway, and I wouldn't be surprised if many Rebel cells outright executed anyone who got cold feet. Rogue One certainly provided plenty of canonical demonstration of the ruthless pragmatic side of the Alliance.

 

[Zachowon]

I actually think TLJ has some of the best cinematography in a movie I had seen in theaters

 

[Bear Ribs]

See, that's another thing I hated about Rose. Namely that she denies the members of the Resistance the ability to leave. I'm willing to bet that there was no order to detain any deserteurs and she started it on her own because "muh dead sister! muh duty to stay!" and projected that mindset onto any resister.

Le Shrug. I can't tell if that was her orders or not and can't see disliking the character for that, and abandoning your comrades in the heat of battle (or an incredibly lengthy chase) isn't something I'm prepared to root for so I'll give that one to Rose.

I actually think TLJ has some of the best cinematography in a movie I had seen in theaters

Can you tell us what about the cinematography you found impressive?