Official Star Wars Thread - May the force be with you

[JPL]

1 minute ago, K said:

My son fucking LOVED Rise of Skywalker. The Last Jedi was a bit long for him. But at the same time he also thinks that Johnny Test is better than Pingu, so ultimately, I think I'm better placed to judge what constitutes a good film.

It certainly doesn’t look like it going on your previous post.

[Stoppy2000]

Rise of Skywalker is pretty kid friendly I think - mostly because it's just a rollercoaster ride of a movie with very little downtime. I think it's perfectly re-watchable but it's ultimately the final part of an overall missed opportunity.

However I saw the sequel trilogy with my son at the cinema so that added magic which no amount of click-bait naysayers will take away. I'm so old. 

[Phantoon]

43 minutes ago, K said:

Rather than having Luke be some fallible, relatable, relatively complicated character, surely it would have been more satisfying if the reason he'd been gone for so long was because he'd been stuck in a crevice for ten years? Then he could spring into action immediately with his force powers, as befits a master Jedi who has unlocked all the abilities and maxed out his skill points.

He killed 10,000 womp rats so he really minmaxed his Force powers!

[Hanzo the Razor]

38 minutes ago, gone fishin said:

And no kid wants to buy a toy of some grumpy old space tramp.

 

Yeah no kid ever bought this grumpy old space tramp.

 

[K]

 

Giss ten pee f'ra cuppa tea mate

[Dirty Harry Potter]

The Last Jedi would have been far better received if it hadn't killed off Luke imo. Giving him a one movie to be grumpy, and then another whole film to redeem himself would have been far more dramatically satisfying.

[gone fishin]

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Hanzo the Razor said:

 

Yeah no kid ever bought this grumpy old space tramp.

 

 

Obi Wan might have started off as a space tramp, but then you find out that old “Ben” knew all about this mystical space Force thing, owned a cool Light Sabre or fought in this incredible sounding “Clone Wars”.  Then it turned out he was arch enemies with Darth Vader and fought him to the death in a Light Sabre duel. That’s something that kids want to re-enact with their toys.. like in this original TV advert for the figures

 

 

Instead with Luke Skywalker in the Last Jedi, you got a grumpy old space tramp who did nothing but moan and while he seemed to redeem himself by fighting Kylo Ren at the end. Ha! Fooled you! Instead it was all just a hoax! It was just a space hologram!

 

Turns out poor old Luke really ended up not leaving Craggy Island and just expired while space meditating, no doubt off his tits on the Star Wars equivalent of White Lightning (blue milk). What a story arc! What kid doesn’t want to re-enact that with his Last Jedi figures? 

 

 

[Clipper]

1 hour ago, gone fishin said:

 

Instead with Luke Skywalker in the Last Jedi, you got a grumpy old space tramp who did nothing but moan and while he seemed to redeem himself by fighting Kylo Ren at the end. Ha! Fooled you! Instead it was all just a hoax! It was just a space hologram!

 

Turns out poor old Luke really ended up not leaving Craggy Island and just expired while space meditating, no doubt off his tits on the Star Wars equivalent of White Lightning (blue milk).

 

 

[Uncle Mike]

At the risk of endlessly relitigating the chronic TLJ disease, I think there are a few areas even the most ardent TLJ fan would concede might feel a little odd (I find it hard to reconcile the Luke of Return of the Jedi with the man we see in flashbacks considering killing a teenage student that happens to be the son of his best friends) but the force hologram "battle" with Kylo and his whole battalion is not one of those. I thought that part was brilliant.

[Stig]

3 hours ago, Kevvy Metal said:

Maybe we should poll a group of 10-years to find out if the sequel trilogy is good or not?

 

For my daughter I submit

 

"Star Wars is boring, there's too much desert and deserts are boring"

[Nick R]

3 minutes ago, Stigweard said:

 

For my daughter I submit

 

"Star Wars is boring, there's too much desert and deserts are boring"

 

 

[K]

I really enjoyed the Last Jedi and thought it was a great film, but if some 10 year olds don't like it then it can only be a bad film and my enjoyment is negated.

[K]

44 minutes ago, Uncle Mike said:

At the risk of endlessly relitigating the chronic TLJ disease, I think there are a few areas even the most ardent TLJ fan would concede might feel a little odd (I find it hard to reconcile the Luke of Return of the Jedi with the man we see in flashbacks considering killing a teenage student that happens to be the son of his best friends) but the force hologram "battle" with Kylo and his whole battalion is not one of those. I thought that part was brilliant.

 

Honestly, I find that bit quite relatable. Parenthood for me is characterised by extreme emotions whereby your child goes from the most wonderful thing on earth to being an absolute nightmare. Obviously I've never wanted to kill my child with a lightsaber and it's hugely exaggerated in the film because everything in Star Wars is writ large but I can imagine that Luke might feel a momentary burst of anger and fear when he feels something terrible in Ben's mind. The fear that your child might turn out badly is pretty real. In-universe, it's probably at the forefront of Luke's mind given that Obi-Wan taking his eye off the ball when training his dad resulted in galaxy-wide genocide and tyranny.

[Uncle Mike]

I saw a kid of a friend of mine throw a remote control into his Dad's temple at point blank range/full strength during a tantrum, and just for a microsecond I saw real rage in the Dad's eyes and thought the kid would be lucky to survive that, so maybe you have a point.

[Darren]

20 minutes ago, K said:

Obviously I've never wanted to kill my child with a lightsaber

 

Nice qualification

[Kevvy Metal]

He also didn't want to kill Ben Solo per se. He saw the dark side rising again - in him - and had a moment where he could take the opportunity to snuff out the whole thing right there and then and avoid another literal Star War.

Luke's always had an air of "will he? won't he?" fall to the darkside in the OT, and is the literal son of the man who famously did so.

He had a moment , felt the anger rise up in him, then immediate regret at what he had done.

[Alex W.]

TLJ is perpetually fascinating to me because there’s a lot that’s obviously wrong with it, which I was mentally taking notes on even as I watched the first screening, but the internet hate economy just doesn’t seem to have the cognitive capacity to recognise any of it. You ask them what’s bad about the movie and they’ll start listing the sort of “I didn’t pay attention” stuff from Everything Wrong With… or IMDB goofs, without a mention of things like pacing, editing, payoffs… You ask them why they think it turned out that way and they’ll start going off about SJW directors and executive conspiracies and not, like, a movie-per-year Star Wars content production line.

 

I’d say “how can people care so much about something but not have a clue how it works” but the entire videogame development discourse makes it clear that people don’t need to understand something to obsess over it. The obsession is the object, not the art itself.

 

The sequel trilogy is actually getting rebooted though:

 

 

[Clipper]

1 hour ago, Uncle Mike said:

At the risk of endlessly relitigating the chronic TLJ disease, I think there are a few areas even the most ardent TLJ fan would concede might feel a little odd (I find it hard to reconcile the Luke of Return of the Jedi with the man we see in flashbacks considering killing a teenage student that happens to be the son of his best friends) but the force hologram "battle" with Kylo and his whole battalion is not one of those. I thought that part was brilliant.

the Luke parts on the island and the "final duel" with Kylo were utterly compelling and superb. The imagery of the white revealing red and the whole build up to it and then the "battle" was just fantastic - I will rewatch the film just for those parts (I rewatch Force Awakens for the memberberries and Rise of Skywalker for the laughs)

 

The rest of TLJ (barring Rey/Kylo scenes) was very very shaky with the slowmo chase, Po being a knob, the whole Casino subplot - yuck.

[Phantoon]

21 minutes ago, Clipper said:

Po being a knob,

 

It was nice seeing insubordination actually being punished in a film for once. Hotshot flyboys facing consequences for their actions was great. In real life they get people killed.

 

1 hour ago, K said:

 

Honestly, I find that bit quite relatable. Parenthood for me is characterised by extreme emotions whereby your child goes from the most wonderful thing on earth to being an absolute nightmare. Obviously I've never wanted to kill my child with a lightsaber and it's hugely exaggerated in the film because everything in Star Wars is writ large but I can imagine that Luke might feel a momentary burst of anger and fear when he feels something terrible in Ben's mind. The fear that your child might turn out badly is pretty real. In-universe, it's probably at the forefront of Luke's mind given that Obi-Wan taking his eye off the ball when training his dad resulted in galaxy-wide genocide and tyranny.

Also it wasn't really homicidal rage. He felt danger and got a glimpse of a potential future and out comes the lightsabre in reflex. Certainly Prequel era Jedi whip them out without a second thought so he's falling prey to their foibles.

Second time he tells the story, Luke's telling the truth. He saw his own blade and realised what he'd done. He'd never have killed Ben Solo, or indeed anyone else in their sleep. Unfortunately the damage was done. It does give Kylo a better reason to be evil beyond "wah waah it's not fair" too

[Thor]

59 minutes ago, Kevvy Metal said:

He also didn't want to kill Ben Solo persay. He saw the dark side rising again - in him - and had a moment where he could take the opportunity to snuff out the whole thing right there and then and avoid another literal Star War.

Luke's always had an air of "will he? won't he?" fall to the darkside in the OT, and is the literal son of the man who famously did so.

He had a moment , felt the anger rise up in him, then immediate regret at what he had done.

I've pos'd you because I agree with your post. But it's "per se".

[Phantoon]

1 minute ago, Thor said:

I've pos'd you because I agree with your post. But it's "per se".

Pesky Latin!

[Stoppy2000]

6 minutes ago, Phantoon said:

Pesky Latin!

You ought to have a basic grasp of Latin if you're commenting on Star Wars...

[Kevvy Metal]

14 minutes ago, Thor said:

I've pos'd you because I agree with your post. But it's "per se".

 

Fair enough, aye!

[Phantoon]

36 minutes ago, Stoppy2000 said:

You ought to have a basic grasp of Latin if you're commenting on Star Wars...

You definitely want to appear compos mentis if you don't want to be persona non grata

[Nick R]

58 minutes ago, Stoppy2000 said:

You ought to have a basic grasp of Latin if you're commenting on Star Wars...

 

Veni, Vader, vici.

[Ste_S]

6 hours ago, Phantoon said:

It was nice seeing insubordination actually being punished in a film for once. Hotshot flyboys facing consequences for their actions was great. In real life they get people killed.

He got his hair ruffled by Holdo (he’s alright really), just before she went off and committed suicidal, all so later Poe can have a literal light bulb go off above his head In a cave ‘It’s a distraction!’

 

Its a terrible story line.

[Phantoon]

1 hour ago, Ste_S said:

He got his hair ruffled by Holdo (he’s alright really), just before she went off and committed suicidal, all so later Poe can have a literal light bulb go off above his head In a cave ‘It’s a distraction!’

 

Its a terrible story line.

He gets demoted by Leia, sees his arse and attempts mutiny, then gets shot by Leia. The only reason he doesn't get court martialled at the end of the film is because by then the entirety of the Resistance fits on the Falcon.

[Talvalin]

On 12/01/2022 at 08:53, Phantoon said:

I'm always a bit confused by the charge that the sequel trilogy undoes the wins of the original films. I'll concede that Rise of Skywalker completely messes up Vader's sacrifice as apparently blowing somebody up, then blowing up the place he blew up in is now no longer enough to kill someone (apparently), but thirty years of peace not under the Emperor's heel isn't nothing.

 

Agreed.

 

I wouldn't give credit to Abrams for thinking of this, especially given that things weren't quite so bad when TFA was released, but the sequel trilogy could also be viewed as showing that the fight is never over, and the gains of yesterday can be so easily undone without constant vigilance.

[sid]

A better story might have been about absolute power corrupting, so perhaps Luke eventually turning to the dark side / the goodies ruling and eventually becoming corrupt. That this stuff comes in waves and then showing another uprising against them or

something like that. Like maybe turns back in the end.
 

Rather than the fucking retreads we got.

 

you could end it with a tlj style broom being picked up using the force by some

kid….maybe he’s torturing a bug or something ie the cycle never ends, power will eventually corrupt etc

[kensei]

On 11/01/2022 at 22:32, Festoon said:

 

Er, they did, from disillusionment to redemption. As per the histories.

 

Or would you rather an Arthurian fall from grace?

 

We last see Luke in Return of The Jedi - he's been tested and he's passed. He's rejected the Dark Side. He is a Jedi. He, like the Republic, can rebuild.

 

We fast forward and everything is fucked so we can get back to the OT status quo. That's irritating in a general sense, but when it is applied to Luke in particular - hero of the OT, the one that refused to give up on Darth Vader, cynical and beaten as out introduction it's hard for the audience to swallow. Particularly in a series when you are tapping into childhood nostalgia. For the record, how Han Solo was handled in TFA was pretty shit too, but at least you had that scene with Kylo.

 

So yes, I'd rather see an Arthurian fall from grace. The whole flashback in TLJ - Luke running his school, Ben Solo being tempted and failing - and the history hinted at in the sequels generally - the Republic struggling to assert itself post war, the Empire being pushed to the margins but slowly rebuilding - seemed like a much more interesting and fresher take on Star Wars than the retreads we got. 

 

I think the subsequent TV shows are proving this out a bit.