Now that the dust's settled, a re-evaluation of Disney's Star Wars films

[kabbes]

What, even worse than Attack of the Clones?? Nothing is worse than Attack of the Clones.

Attack of the Clones at least had a story that gave its characters motivation and purpose, and what they did mattered. It was a terrible film, but I wasn’t left at the end feeling that it was pointless. “Say what you like about the tenets of national socialism, Dude, but at least it’s an ethos. At least it’s a creed.” The Last Jedi was pure nihilism. Worse than Hitler.

 

[Spandex]

Last Jedi: a rag-tag fleet of survivors are chased through space by an overwhelming enemy set on their destruction; moral ambiguity; good people doing bad things with the best intentions; a visit to a space casino full of people ignoring the intergalactic goings on.

It's like when Rian Johnson was asked to write the script he went and watched all the Battlestar Galactica, new and old, then the day before he was due to present it to the studio got a call asking if he'd finished his Star Wars script and he was all "wait..? what..? Star Wars?", so he skim read the Wikipedia entry on Force Awakens, watched the first half of Empire Strikes Back and spent an all night coke & booze fuelled session rewriting his script before staggering into the studio the next day saying "I... uh... decided to... err... subvert expectations with this one! Yes, that's what I'm doing, okay?"

 

[stereotypical]

Let's be honest now. As much as I liked and was excited by them at the time and trying my hardest to not be a typical 40 something Star Wars fan boy.....

They are all shite (you can throw the TV series in there too, all of them).

TLJ was an utter shitshow abomination of epic proportions. Rogue 1 by far the best.

 

[Reno]

This thread is just there to reassure each other over and over how terrible The Last Jedi apparently was, which as a non-Star Wars fan was among the few entries in the franchise I thought was a proper movie by a real filmmaker and not just two hours of corporate fan service. I'm not going to get into a discussion of the film as Star Wars fans are the movie equivalent of religious fundamentalists, but don't you ever even get the slightest bit bored with yourself ?

 

[ska invita]

This thread is just there to reassure each other over and over how terrible The Last Jedi apparently was, which as a non-Star Wars fan was among the few entries in the franchise I thought was a proper movie by a real filmmaker and not just two hours of corporate fan service. I'm not going to get into a discussion of the film as Star Wars fans are the movie equivalent of religious fundamentalists, but don't you ever even get the slightest bit bored with yourself ?

its objectively a mess, about three films in one + loads of stupid shit happens, but did feel a bit more like a proper film, agree. Looked amazing. The script was the problem. Which Rian wrote.
I think i read Rian Johnson is lined up to do more Star Wars films (plural)? May or may not happen of course.

 

[Reno]

its objectively a mess, about three films in one + loads of stupid shit happens, but did feel a bit more like a proper film, agree. Looked amazing. The script was the problem. Which Rian wrote.
I think i read Rian Johnson is lined up to do more Star Wars films (plural)? May or may not happen of course.

Only Star Wars fans feel like that. People like me, general cineastes and film critics who aren’t hardcore Star Wars fans but who love movies in general thought this was a far better and more interesting film than your average Star Wars movie, it got great reviews when it came out. How does this make the film “objectively” a mess ? And Star Wars fans gave The Rise of Skywalker a pass, genuinely one of the messiest big budget movies I've seen, not an actual film but a desperate course-correct to cater to the worst impulses of Star Wars fans.

 

[kabbes]

They’re all terrible. Everything made since Return of the Jedi. (The earlier ones might be terrible too, of course, but I can’t judge them because they formed my childhood). The Last Jedi was simply particularly awful because nothing that anybody did made any difference to anything.

 

[killer b]

two hours of corporate fan service.

Into this phrase - could be applied to vast swathes of modern cinema

 

[Santino]

I'm a fairly big Star Wars fan and I loved The Last Jedi.

 

[strung out]

I'm ambivalent to Star Wars, although they do occupy a fond place in my heart for comfort watching, and thought both The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker were crap. I did like The Force Awakens though.

 

[strung out]

I wonder if we can crowd source a moderately reliable venn diagram of this?

 

[skyscraper101]

Never really got the appeal of Star Wars. I wasn't born when it came out so it was just one of those things that never really entered my consciousness until everyone started banging on about it again when they made the newer ones in the 90s.

I also went out with this girl who was massively into it and she made me watch the first three in a row in my 30s but it just didn't hold any appeal.

 

[moochedit]

Ep7 was ok (not great but ok). Ep8 was awful ( * spits * ). Ep9 tried it's best to fix the damage ep8 had done but didn't quite pull it off so taken as a whole disney ep's 7-9 were shite.

I liked Rogue one, Solo (which suffered from being released after last jedi) and the tv shows mandalorian, boba fett, obi wan and Andor so disney haven't fucked everything up.

 

[moochedit]

Only Star Wars fans feel like that. People like me, general cineastes and film critics who aren’t hardcore Star Wars fans but who love movies in general thought this was a far better and more interesting film than your average Star Wars movie, it got great reviews when it came out. How does this make the film “objectively” a mess ? And Star Wars fans gave The Rise of Skywalker a pass, genuinely one of the messiest big budget movies I've seen, not an actual film but a desperate course-correct to cater to the worst impulses of Star Wars fans.

When you are at no 7 in a film series then of course fans opinions are more important than non-fans and "critics". The "critics" just got it wrong with last jedi!

 

[Reno]

Into this phrase - could be applied to vast swathes of modern cinema

...but most of these don't reduce the roles of POC characters because racist fans can't cope with them.

Anyways, I'm out of here, go on talk among yourselves.

 

[Karl Masks]

The Last Jedi just angered me. Not least of all because that meant I had to be seen in the context of all the nutters who think that the sequels were woke propaganda.

I found it a depressing sequel made by someone that thinks subverting expectations was enough. But this is star wars, you can't really subvert it without spoiling it, and if you have to subvert things then you need to put something new in its place. Instead Snoke just gets killed and...? What the fuck?
Luke is redced to being a an embittered failure that nearly murdered his nephew? What the fuck? This is Star Wars ffs. The Luke I remember was the hero of a simple series of flash gordon style pulp space fantasies.

I don't know or want to know these sequels anymore. The less said about SOLO the better. An utter turd of a movie. Rogue one was good.

 

[Orang Utan]

They’re all mediocre but enjoyable enough, apart from Empire Strikes Back which is boring and confusing and tonally all over the place - should probably have been two films, but I don’t want to endorse more Star Wars films. The TV series I’ve seen are far better than any of the films.

 

[T & P]

I’m a big SW fan, and whereas I thought TLJ had many problems, I’m also kind of with Reno on it being the best of the sequel trilogy.

At the end of the day, if you allow each film in a given trilogy to be written and directed by a different set of people and let them do their thing (as opposed to, say, the Back to the Future trilogy, which had a planned three-part story arc from the off), you should expect each writer/ director to express themselves much more freely.

TFA was a visually pleasing shameless piece of comforting fan service that was a thinly disguised abridged reboot of the original trilogy. Episode IX jumped the shark in many bad ways and was ultimately a massive letdown. TLJ had some of the most cringeworthy and plot hole-ridden set ups ever (Wacky Races in space running out of fuel was as preposterous as Princess Leia’s zombie Mary Poppins trick), but credit where it’s due- at least it dared to be original and not rely in fan service and Easter eggs.

But ultimately, the whole trilogy was a hot mess story-wise. I hate the prequel trilogy with an undying passion for the crushing disappointment they were, and episodes I & II remain the worst SW films ever made. But credit to Lucas for at least trying, with a coherent story arc across the three films, which is more than can be said of the sequel trilogy.

Ultimately, the only modern film that stands the test of time and deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence as the original trilogy is Rogue One. Even above ROTJ in my book.

And as the TV series go, Mando is great enjoyable fun, and Andor has already established itself as the highest grownup artistic quality SW product ever. Boba Fett was mediocre, Obi Wan a lazy unimaginative piece of garbage.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The Boba Fett show served no purpose besides ruining the whole arc of the excellent first two series of the Mandalorian, which should clearly have been left alone as a completed story but then Disney, money etc

 

[T & P]

The Boba Fett show served no purpose besides ruining the whole arc of the excellent first two series of the Mandalorian, which should clearly have been left alone as a completed story but then Disney, money etc

It did have some redeeming features, however. Even though it was disjointed from the rest of the story, I really enjoyed the Sand People timeline stuff. Very good, emotionally engaging storytelling, exploring a timeline and set of background characters in depth for the first time. It brilliantly managed to transform a supposedly cruel and unlikeable race into a complex, three dimensional and actually sympathetic set of people.

In fact, if you cut out the present day stuff and re-edited Boba Fett as a prequel spin-off series about him escaping Sarlacc’s pit and being captured by the Sand People, it would become a very decent show imo.

 

[stereotypical]

This thread is just there to reassure each other over and over how terrible The Last Jedi apparently was, which as a non-Star Wars fan was among the few entries in the franchise I thought was a proper movie by a real filmmaker and not just two hours of corporate fan service. I'm not going to get into a discussion of the film as Star Wars fans are the movie equivalent of religious fundamentalists, but don't you ever even get the slightest bit bored with yourself ?

Oh this thread is nothing. There's 5 hour youtube rants about how bad it is.

It was truly fucking awful though. Badly written, doesn't make sense and fucks the entire story over so JJ had to work with what he could (which ended up being crap fan service cos Disney shat itself over the backlash).

A disgrace to cinema and film and should have never been given the green light.

 

[Orang Utan]

Oh this thread is nothing. There's 5 hour youtube rants about how bad it is.

It was truly fucking awful though. Badly written, doesn't make sense and fucks the entire story over so JJ had to work with what he could (which ended up being crap fan service cos Disney shat itself over the backlash).

A disgrace to cinema and film and should have never been given the green light.

LEAVE STAR WARS ALONE!

 

[stdP]

Never really got the appeal of Star Wars. I wasn't born when it came out so it was just one of those things that never really entered my consciousness until everyone started banging on about it again when they made the newer ones in the 90s.

I also went out with this girl who was massively into it and she made me watch the first three in a row in my 30s but it just didn't hold any appeal.

I'm in largely the same boat as you; didn't see the first film until after everyone at infant school was going gaga over the toys, and I think I saw the first one on the telly not long after that. For sure it had glitzy effects and space battles and looked altogether fantastic, but it never held my attention in the same way that other kid's films did at the time. I think The Princess Bride, which came up recently in the Framed thread, is one of the few films I still thoroughly enjoy from that era.

I was dutifully dragged to see the new ones in the 90s along with my fawning teenage pals and the overarching consensus was of almost painful disappointment. I pointed out that they seemed scarcely better to me than the original 80s films. I regard Star Wars as a franchise of two-and-a-half good films; the novelty value and visual polish in Star Wars helps mask the truly execrable dialogue; Empire Strikes Back is the most solid entry with a better script, direction and editing and a frankly marvellous turn from Harrison George who does an even better job than the first in bringing the film alive. Return of the Jedi has a couple of good bits but Harrison George is phoning it in even before it becomes comically cutesey.

I picked up some copies of the Despecialised editions (for those not in the know - fan-made versions of the original cuts cribbed from the edited hi-def and filled in with scenes from the original laserdiscs to make them as close to the original cinematic releases as possible; "Han shot first!" and all that) a while back and that's about as close as I've got to finding any of the franchise watchable since. So I don't have any meaningful contribution to this thread, not having seen any of the post-prequel output, but I wanted another opportunity to blow a raspberry at the franchise again in general. From reading the thread it sounds like I'm not missing anything but if I accidentally find myself Clockwork Oranged in to a chair in front of The Last Jedi - which seems to be almost universally despised - I'll be sure to come back to the thread with my tuppence

 

[Orang Utan]

Harrison Ford or George Lucas?
Or Harrison Dickinson, George Takei?

 

[Reno]

Never really got the appeal of Star Wars. I wasn't born when it came out so it was just one of those things that never really entered my consciousness until everyone started banging on about it again when they made the newer ones in the 90s.

I also went out with this girl who was massively into it and she made me watch the first three in a row in my 30s but it just didn't hold any appeal.

I was 15 when the first Star Wars came out and should have been the perfect audience but I still didn't get it. It already felt too juvenile for me then, with barely there characterisation, a simplistic good vs evil conflict and a faraway fantasy world which looked nice but which I found hard to relate to. I already was into classic Hollywood films then, especially Hitchcock (classic Hollywood films were TV prime time viewing in the 70s) and compared to the emotional complexity of those films, Star Wars was kids stuff. Then Spielberg's Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind came out a few months later and it blew my mind, it became for me what Star Wars was for other kids and I went to see it multiple times at the cinema. Much of the film played as human drama of a family break up, so when the UFOs come, the special effects sequences felt grounded in a human dimension which I could relate to.

 

[kabbes]

I don’t think that 15 really was the target audience for the original Star Wars. I think the perfect age was more like 6-12. You thought it was juvenile because it is juvenile, and was intended that way. Mark Hamil even goes on (the kid’s TV show) Blue Peter to promote it and describes it as a fairy story in space, with wizards and princesses. That was always the original premise.

 

[Reno]

I don’t think that 15 really was the target audience for the original Star Wars. I think the perfect age was more like 6-12. You thought it was juvenile because it is juvenile, and was intended that way. Mark Hamil even goes on (the kid’s TV show) Blue Peter to promote it and describes it as a fairy story in space, with wizards and princesses. That was always the original premise.

Star Wars appealed to kids and to adults, otherwise it would not have become what at the time was the financially most successful movie of all time. A considerable number of adults must gone to see the film multiple times for that to happen. It wasn't that only 6-12 year olds sitting in cinemas, it was the start of the infantilisation of cinema audiences, adults getting in touch with their "inner child". This has developed over the decades where Hollywood now is at a point, where it produces nothing but interconnected franchises of people flying around in capes (and still Star Wars !). I was just never inclined that way, I never felt nostalgic about my childhood.

 

[kabbes]

Sure, adults loved it too. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t always envisaged as a juvenile film. In turn, that means it was arguably angsty older teenagers that were the least aimed-at market segment. Maybe if you’d been either five years older or five years younger when it came out, you’d have had a very different experience of it.

 

[mojo pixy]

The Last Jedi was simply particularly awful because nothing that anybody did made any difference to anything.

This isn't really true though. Kylo Ren kills Snoke because Rey makes him feel how he's been manipulated, and he's kind of fallen in love with her (or her nascent power). Finn, who had his own moment of clarity but really only joined the rebellion because Rose threatened to taser him if he tried to escape, kills captain Phasma. That's two big baddies who both die because of stuff characters do. Then Luke is set on remaining a hermit till Rey (and Yoda and R2D2) persuade him to get involved.

It's a middle film, so it has to leave a set-up for the last one - but to say nothing anyone does makes any difference is a massive overstatement IMO.

(edit to add, I saw it very recently and it certainly has its weaknesses - mainly in the script tbh - but it's fresh in my mind so I had to say this)

 

[kabbes]

Some people do some stuff but that isn’t really the same as the film having the circle of, for example, the hero’s journey or any other narrative structure. I can have two hours of people staring at a wall and at the end one punches the other. That doesn’t mean that the story went anywhere. So, for example, “Phasma dies” is a big “so what?” It made no difference to anything. A character with almost no screen time that did nothing of consequence is now gone. And?

Most of the story of TLJ is that a bunch of wacky adventures decided to ignore their leader and charge off to do some mcguffin that I can’t even remember any more. They charge around space casinos and they like and the net result is that they made no difference whatsoever in service of whatever it was they were trying to achieve. They neither help nor hinder and they learn nothing along the way. When they get back, they might as well not have bothered. Meanwhile, ultimately, Kylo’s and Rey’s burgeoning connection goes nowhere — Kylo just becomes the new big bad guy to no real net effect and Rey has learnt nothing and rejoins the same group she left. That was set up to really be something interesting, but Johnson bottled it.

It's a middle film, so it has to leave a set-up for the last one

Well, quite. And it doesn’t even manage that.