das is more of a “phat” nerd. As in displaying excellence in his nerdery. He’s an inspiration.
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I can only assume that your (well-known) good heart prevents you from giving Rise of Skywalker an F, because if anything ever deserved it, that did.
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To the point of your post, my biggest complaint of the Disney era is that good storytelling is well within Hollywood’s wheelhouse. And yet …
They’ve had some hits that were very good, but the latest main trilogy fell off so damn quickly it somewhat spoils the bunch.
Laying low for a while and regrouping may be the way to go.
(And I agree Lucas messed the bed before they put on the Mickey Mouse sheets)
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F means I walk out of the theater mid-show. Which I have done a couple of times in my life. But did not for Rise of Skywalker. It was pretty darn bad though and a huge disappointment.
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This is the one I could most easily be convinced to change upwards. But, Ewoks, man.
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Don’t agree. There’s nothing wrong with rebooting a storyline and they did this with resolve and aplomb. Great copywriting, easter eggs galore, decent acting, great retro affects devoid of unnecessary CGI. I find it eminently rewatchable.
I liked it for the intro of Darth Maul. A true badass bad guy. He was the “royal guard / assassin” character that set the bar before Disney flooded the landscape with those Force-enabled types in every show over the last 7 or 8 years. Diluting their cinematic value.
TROS remains the only Star Wars movie I have never watched. And probably never will now.
It’s the only one I’ve never watched multiple times.
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My once and done list is: AOTC, ROTS and Solo. Possible TLJ, but I think I may have watched that more than once - which is a mistake because the moment you stop being distracted by all the pretty, pretty images, you start to think about what is happening and get irritated.
The fight scene in the salt is the only thing that happened in that movie that I choose to remember.
Bystander no comment
I liked the jumping into hyperspace right through the imperial fleet.
If they’d let Finn finish his arc then, I would agree with you. But it had been about 30 seconds since the last subversion of expectations so Johnson just had to ruin that too.
I just meant the one with Luke and Kylo.
Almost every other scene in the entire movie was terrible either in concept or execution.
(Hyperspace battering ram was cool as Matt said)
Yeah, but Luke wasn’t there so that fight was (say it with me) a subversion of expectations. And then Luke just died alone on a rock for reasons.
TLJ was a spectacular-looking movie (Canto Bites horse race excepted). But barely scratch the surface of any part of it, and it’s almost as if it was one long continuous prank.
It was a pretty good movie stapled to a bad movie. An interesting story about the Jedi but also Best Value Guardians of the Galaxy…
Johnson took Luke Skywalker, the most optimistic and good-hearted character perhaps in the history of cinema (or at least since Dorothy went over the rainbow) - he saw good in Darth Vader FFS - and turned him into a bitter, grizzled old hermit who threw away his lightsaber and had tried to kill his own nephew for showing signs of being susceptible to the dark side.
Forget what he did with Reylo and the beclowning of Finn and teleporting Rose and Leia Poppins and red-shirting Admiral Akbar and red-shirting “big bad” Snoke and Canto fucking Bite and Holdo’s double-super secret plan and hyperspace missiles and sooooo much more stupidity…shitting the bed with the characterization of Luke Skywalker is absolute dumbfuckery of the highest order.
This is where I am: I thought Johnson had a lot of good ideas that he explored in a movie that had no place in the Skywalker Saga
The minute I saw that (the lead up and dawning realization was very well done as was the cinematic execution of the actual jump+damage), I thought to myself, "well duh, of course that’s a thing. Why have we not seen that countless times previously in truly dire circumstances (like the battle at the Shield Gate at Scarif in Rogue One). And then immediately started to wonder why hyperspace-enabled kinetic drones a normal part of their arsenal. If small vehicles such as single-seat fighters and low-cost vehicles like transport barges can “afford” hyperspace capabilities, surely such drones would be cost-effective weapons against capital targets. All of the sudden, blasters and ion cannons become extraneous. This is why storyline canon matters…
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They invented new force powers all the time: moving stuff with your mind came in during Empire and force lightning came in during Jedi. But…
…you can’t destroy the plots of the other films. Both Hope and Jedi lose their climactic battles if you just have an astromech droid hyperspace an X-Wing through the Death Star.
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