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The [Movies] Thread: Pre-Summer Blockbuster Blockbuster Season

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Posts

  • GvzbgulGvzbgul Registered User regular
    Michael Bay is the Martin Scorsese of making Michael Bay films.

  • reVersereVerse Attack and Dethrone God Registered User regular
    edited April 2017
    Hopkins aint wrong, though.

    reVerse on
  • TenzytileTenzytile Registered User regular
    "(then again, Scorsese has defended director Roman Polanski, so maybe not the best comparison)"

    This is an odd topic to bring up in the article. Also... defended Polanski in what sense? That matters.

  • MalReynoldsMalReynolds The Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicines Registered User regular
    Gvzbgul wrote: »
    I believe that Michael Bay is very good at doing what he does.

    And bub, what he does ain't pretty.

    "A new take on the epic fantasy genre... Darkly comic, relatable characters... twisted storyline."
    "Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
    My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Registered User regular
    Tenzytile wrote: »
    "(then again, Scorsese has defended director Roman Polanski, so maybe not the best comparison)"

    This is an odd topic to bring up in the article. Also... defended Polanski in what sense? That matters.

    Think about it. It's something that's uncomfortably popular in Hollywood.

  • SorceSorce Not ThereRegistered User regular
    Sorce wrote: »
    Thirith wrote: »
    Astaereth wrote: »
    The problem wasn't that it was politics, the problem was that it was trade, which is enormously difficult to make into compelling cinema even if you're not also telling a rhyming space epic action movie at the same time... Try to make a compelling movie in present day America about fucking NAFTA, I dare you, it basically can't be done.
    Might be an idea to have an explanatory bit in the middle of the film delivered by a sexy bot taking an oil bath, voiced and motion captured by Margot Robbie.
    Or just have Margot Robbie as one of those tentacle head aliens.

    Twi'lek or Togruta?

    ...this is an important question.
    I have no idea really, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there's multiple sexy tentacle-head aliens in Star Wars.

    sig.gif
  • Dark Raven XDark Raven X Laugh hard, run fast, be kindRegistered User regular
    Sorce wrote: »
    Sorce wrote: »
    Thirith wrote: »
    Astaereth wrote: »
    The problem wasn't that it was politics, the problem was that it was trade, which is enormously difficult to make into compelling cinema even if you're not also telling a rhyming space epic action movie at the same time... Try to make a compelling movie in present day America about fucking NAFTA, I dare you, it basically can't be done.
    Might be an idea to have an explanatory bit in the middle of the film delivered by a sexy bot taking an oil bath, voiced and motion captured by Margot Robbie.
    Or just have Margot Robbie as one of those tentacle head aliens.

    Twi'lek or Togruta?

    ...this is an important question.
    I have no idea really, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there's multiple sexy tentacle-head aliens in Star Wars.

    Twi'lek are the sexy ones, Togruta are the spikey ones.

    Twi'lek are also dimorphic to account for someone deciding Oola, the green slave girl that gets fed to the Rancor, and Bib Fortuna, Jabba's interpreter are the same species despite looking fairly different. They further decided that Oola's tiara thing hiding her ears meant that female Twi'lek have weird nub ears, while males have regular human ears...

    Oh brilliant
  • WearingglassesWearingglasses Of the friendly neighborhood variety Registered User regular
    Togruta can be sexy.

  • GrisloGrislo Registered User regular
    I watched Beyond the Gates yesterday, and I'd advice anyone considering watching it to not watch it. It's a bad-bad movie.

    At, like, 75 minutes it felt long. There's no real story to keep it going, or interesting. It commits that particular low budget sin of not really knowing when to end individual scenes, so the pacing isn't just broadly off, it's off in any given scene. The acting is poor, but it's partially down to the writing, and I'm sure the actors could do well with a different script.

    For a while, at around the 45 minute mark, it had some potential, and the vague Jumanji-esque idea felt like it could work. Spoiler: it didn't.

    To anyone who has watched it - remember the monster that attacks them in the basement? Go look up the "The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon" on YouTube, and then cringe a little bit when you make the connection. Though, in fairness, their makeup budget was probably pretty low.

    It's yet another movie that tries to make it on "hey, remember the eighties? We have vaguely similar music, and a neon font during our credits", which just isn't enough. It commits the sin of Rodriquez-ism, and fails to deliver.

    This post was sponsored by Tom Cruise.
  • LoserForHireXLoserForHireX Philosopher King The AcademyRegistered User regular
    Togruta can be sexy.

    Seriously, let us not judge weird head shapes this harshly.

    "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
    "We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
  • flamebroiledchickenflamebroiledchicken Registered User regular
    Office Christmas Party, just the dumbest, laziest shit imaginable. It's painfully obvious that the mere existence of this movie is just an excuse to throw a crazy party and shoot footage of it. It even works in some pants-on-head movie tech where Olivia Munn just invents a way to inject wifi into the power grid, thus making every electrical device a wifi hotspot??? It makes no goddamn sense. What a waste of a good cast.

    Sausage Party, I totally expected this one to be equally stupid, but it was actually pretty good! Don't get me wrong, it was plenty dumb, but it knew that it was fundamentally silly and just ran with it. I seem to recall a bunch of backlash or at least some finger-wagging from people about offensive stereotypes, but I didn't find it all that shocking or offensive. I mean, I'm a straight white guy, so YMMV but it seemed pretty tame? The premise started wearing a bit thin by the end, and there wasn't really much "plot" to it other than "we have to get from point A to point B and then back to point A" but as a frame to hang gags on, I thought it was a fun time.

    I also watched Flight of the Navigator, which I haven't seen since I was a kid and sadly it doesn't really stand the test of time. The first half is actually really strong and the premise/mystery is compelling, so for a decent chunk of the movie I was like "Wow, this is actually really good", but once the spaceship starts talking it just gets very silly very quickly and never really recovers.

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  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    I put Office Christmas Party on my year-end Best Of list


    :cool:

  • KorrorKorror Registered User regular
    Help me movie thread!

    I got roped into agreeing to choosing a movie and giving a short introduction for a classic film group I'm part of. I thought I would show a western as that's a genre that we haven't covered yet (previous movies were: Rear Window, Singing in the Rain, Bringing up Baby) but I don't know what to show. I want to show an older western (30s-40s) so I can eventually show a spaghetti western and people can see how things changed in 20-30 years. Problem is that I don't know that many older westerns and my favorite (High Noon) has already been vetoed on the account of too many people having seen it already.

    I'm looking for something that's both good and influential, ideally from the 30s-40s. I was thinking Stagecoach ('39) as it's one of the first John Wayne movies but I'm open to other suggestions.

    Battlenet ID: NullPointer
  • TexiKenTexiKen Dammit! That fish really got me!Registered User regular
    Rio Grande is one of my personal John Wayne favorites.

  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Stagecoach is almost certainly the best early western. You could also try Billy the Kid (1930) but it was also produced before the MPPC was really in effect and so might feel a bit weird compared to what people think as more traditional.

    Other options might be Melody Ranch(1940) (A classic Gene Autry singing western) or one of The Three Mesquiteers movies. (Advantage here is that they're short, only an hour apiece roughly)

    wbBv3fj.png
  • nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    Atomika wrote: »
    I put Office Christmas Party on my year-end Best Of list


    :cool:

    Atomika is Armond White confirmed

  • KorrorKorror Registered User regular
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Stagecoach is almost certainly the best early western. You could also try Billy the Kid (1930) but it was also produced before the MPPC was really in effect and so might feel a bit weird compared to what people think as more traditional.

    Other options might be Melody Ranch(1940) (A classic Gene Autry singing western) or one of The Three Mesquiteers movies. (Advantage here is that they're short, only an hour apiece roughly)

    Thanks, I'll check those out. At the very least it will give me more background to talk about.

    Battlenet ID: NullPointer
  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    Is Shane too late at '53?

  • flamebroiledchickenflamebroiledchicken Registered User regular
    Atomika wrote: »
    I put Office Christmas Party on my year-end Best Of list


    :cool:

    I feel like we watched different movies because I can't agree with your assessment at all. You say "Jennifer Aniston isn’t the heartless bitch she seems like she would have to be", which is true, but to me it was always obvious that she would have a change of heart, because that's what happens in these movies. If anything, I'd argue that it would have been more subversive for her to remain an ice bitch for the whole film instead of being like "Now that you've suddenly invented magic internet, I forgive you for drunk driving and almost getting me killed, I guess I just need to learn to be more fun LOL". Sorry but this was the most paper-thin comedy I've seen in ages.

    y59kydgzuja4.png
  • YogoYogo Registered User regular
    edited April 2017
    Got back from watching Life together with two friends.

    Was it just me or
    Is there a major plot hole at 2/3rds of the movie?

    There are plenty of minor mistakes and issues like using fire in an oxygen controlled environment or a broken hand suddenly being affected by gravity to show that it is limb and broken.

    But this one takes the cake.

    So we're at the scene where they decide to use dead biologist's body to lure Calvin into a separate section of the ship, trap it and deprive it of oxygen. So far so good.

    They manage to do it, seal it and vent all the oxygen. The screens tell us so, showing oxygen at 0%. Now we have a vacuum in that specific section (they are still venting oxygen in the rest of the ship).

    But when Japanese guy hears the space vessel docking and quickly gets out to get home, how the hell is he able to open that vacuumed section?! The control panel is in the section with Jake Gyllenhall and Rebecca Ferguson. However, he just flings the door open like it aint no thing.

    Honestly, I couldn't take the movie serious after that. It felt it didn't matter what the characters did after that cause the movie will just make up some stuff to escalate the problem.

    Yogo on
  • TenzytileTenzytile Registered User regular
    Stagecoach is a good pick. If you're looking for something more comedic, Destry Rides Again is fun. Something that deals more with morality, The Ox-Bow Incident is really good. By the time you get into the late 40's/early 50's, westerns were already starting to question themselves, so I think sticking to something from the mid-40's or earlier is a good pick if you want something that will contrast well with Spaghetti Western.

  • TexiKenTexiKen Dammit! That fish really got me!Registered User regular
    The BFG (Netflix), I guess it's an acronym for The Boringest Film, Guys ohmigod I'm hilarious beer me five.

    I love Dahl's works, and usually peeps give it the respect it deserves when coming to the big screen. This is easily the worst. It feels like Spielberg is very full of himself making this film, letting his usual cinematographer Kamiski go to town on blending the CGI with the human acting, but the trouble here is that for a good portion of the film it's only Sophie interacting, and most of it is A & B camera cut aways so there's never a feeling of being connected to the scene. So you'll have some fascinating bits like how the BFG travels around the land or sneaks around stuff, only to have it be cheap ass greenscreen of cutting from BFG to Sophie that almost looks rear projected.

    So many times it just makes no sense to make it a CGI/live action hybrid, other than Disney must be mandating this now. The animation of the BFG is really good and he absolutely feels like a real fleshed out character (lol), but when you get to the other giants it becomes too cartoony and you might as well go whole hog and likely save money with the humans being CGI too and making it a little more whimsical.

    It's also just a slow ass film. Not in any meaningful sense too, just padding and this sense that because I'm Steven Spielberg, childhood wonders 'member E.T. that no one told him to cut it out. The height difference of the giants works well in the beginning to establish scale, when you keep doing it for mundane stuff in the third act I. Don't. Care. Points are also deducted because while the BFG is good, there feels like an ever present disconnect between the actress and the CGI, it doesn't feel seamless or really connect on the friendship or these emotional scenes such as anything to do with the dreams. It's less an orphan looking to escape her current lot in life and more being plucked into scene A, B, C, etc.

    So not recommended, and a waste of Jemaine Clement and Rylance's voice performance and a good John Williams score.


  • KingofMadCowsKingofMadCows Registered User regular
    https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/04/anthony-hopkins-calls-michael-bay-a-genius-and-savant/
    Anthony Hopkins has worked with some of the best in the business, like Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone. The latest visionary director to earn Sir Hopkins’ favor? None other than the king of explosions, Michael Bay.

    In an interview with Yahoo! Movies, Hopkins gushed about working with Bay on the latest Transformers movie, Transformers: The Last Knight, where he plays an astronomer and historian who knows the “true history” behind the Transformers. In the interview, Hopkins praised Bay and the entire Transformers series, comparing him to some of the greatest directors of all time, including Martin Scorsese. That’s right, Hopkins thinks the guy who reportedly made Megan Fox audition by washing his car for a now-missing video is in the same category as the man behind Goodfellas (then again, Scorsese has defended director Roman Polanski, so maybe not the best comparison).

    “He was telling me about the work he did on [the Transformers bots] – how he would refine them and go into the special effects guys and design them and get all the details of light on metal and all that. He told me all that at breakfast before I started on the film. I thought ‘This guy’s a genius. He really is.’ He’s the same ilk as Oliver Stone and Spielberg and Scorsese. Brilliance. Savants, really, they are. He’s a savant,” Hopkins said.

    Hopkins knows how to promote, I guess. lol

    Or Michael Bay has a video of Hopkins washing his car in short shorts.

  • cursedkingcursedking Registered User regular
    TexiKen wrote: »
    Rio Grande is one of my personal John Wayne favorites.

    Rio Grande is very good. For the time period, I'd also recommend Hondo, 3 Godfathers or She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

    Types: Boom + Robo | Food: Sweet | Habitat: Plains
  • TexiKenTexiKen Dammit! That fish really got me!Registered User regular
    Hondo is great.

    And I only watched that because of that Married With Children episode. Once every 17 years!

  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Fencingsax wrote: »
    Is Shane too late at '53?

    Rio grande also didn't make my cut due to date. If you go to 1960 it's a lot easier to find classic westerns.

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  • cj iwakuracj iwakura The Rhythm Regent Bears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
    edited April 2017
    FroThulhu wrote: »
    I find the background workings of the Star Wars setting incredibly interesting, insofar as they have to do with laser-swords and spaceships going pew-pew.

    Like... in my couple dozen hours playing the Old Republic, I found the implications of massive slaver operations, interstellar gang politics, semi-theological discussions, and the existent of mostly-sapient AI to be incredibly compelling ideas to explore. Insofar as they directly affect laser-swords and spaceships going pew-pew.

    I find the implications of the political slide, the ebb and flow, of the Galactic Empire and the New Republic over the course of decades to be rich in setting potential.

    Because I'm a fucking nerd

    The other few million people who saw the movie(s) don't give a shit, because they're not titanic giganerds. Including the writers and directors.

    I'd love a dynamic political thriller set ten years after the battle of Jakku, featuring Mon Mothma and some stubborn Moff.

    Because I'm a fucking nerd.

    But I also feel like TFA was a widely enjoyable movie because it was shot well, acted well, and the immediate elements of the story (there are bad guys who do bad things, there are good guys who want to make bad things stop happening so much, somebody has magical powers and becomes a good guy; there's a bad guy with magical powers oh noooes!) are presented in broad, brilliantly-colored strokes punctuated by fun character moments.

    And I feel like my nerdy-ass-nerdy desire for more in-depth lore exploration is... nerdy as shit, and entirely unnecessary to the telling of the story.

    Ewoks are my favorite thing. Neither the vast majority of humans anywhere, nor this movie itself, give a single anemic fuck about Ewoks.

    I am deeply confounded by how badly the new Jedi order failed, and that's fairly pertinent to the goings-on in this movie. But the lack of explanation does literally nothing to harm the narrative, except for failing to make it into completely different movie that I would also liked to have seen.

    Which is exactly what the absence of political 'depth' does to TFA.

    Absolutely. Nothing.

    It might have been nice to world build just a little when you have a superweapon that destroys four planets.


    Just saying. There was no emotional attachment at all, because 'politics bad'. Seriously, Disney had a divine mandate to keep it out of the new trilogy.

    If Abrams had done the PT, we'd have no establishment of the Senate at all. Probably someone mentioning in passing that 'oh, that Palpatine guy just took over via a coup and now he's declaring an empire'. If that.

    cj iwakura on
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  • KanaKana Registered User regular
    I've watched two Satyajit Ray movies now, and goddamn do I like this director. His films have a sort of all-encompassing warmth, there's not many directors who can approach stories with such a strong sense of empathy, or examine conflicts while still making basic human kindness interesting and compelling. Pather Panchali is very powerful but a bit slow moving at first, at least until it sucks you in (available to rent on youtube for 3 dollars!). Mahanagar / The Big City is maybe a little more approachable, a subtly but absolutely feminist movie about a housewife in Calcutta who, her family short of money, gets a job as a saleswoman.

    Mahanagar2.jpg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGA8WBTvQco
    when "Our Man Flint" sets out to save the world from catastrophe it matters not at all, because we don't for a moment believe in Flint or his catastrophe.

    That is why I have so much trouble approaching Ray's films as "foreign." They are not foreign. They are about Indians, and I am not an Indian, but Ray's characters have more in common with me than I do the comic-strip characters of Hollywood.

    Ray's people have genuine emotions and ambitions, like the people next door and the people in Peoria and the people in Kansas City. There is not a person reading this review who would not identify immediately and deeply with the characters in "The Big City."

    By contrast, Hollywood films with exploding cigarette lighters and gasping starlets and idiot plots are the real "foreign" films. They have nothing at all in common with us, and Satyajit Ray of India understands us better than Jerry Lewis.
    Never having seen a Satyajit Ray movie is like never having seen the sun or the moon.
    My admiration for Satyajit Ray is total

    A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
  • TenzytileTenzytile Registered User regular
    edited April 2017
    Satyajit Ray is awesome. I especially like Days and Nights in the Forest, Charulata, and The Music Room.

    Tenzytile on
  • So It GoesSo It Goes We keep moving...Registered User regular
    Where can we watch some of his movies?

  • KanaKana Registered User regular
    I don't think any are on netflix right now, but it looks like there's a few on amazon instant video, including The Big City

    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F91ETJS

    A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
  • jungleroomxjungleroomx It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovels Registered User regular
    edited April 2017
    cj iwakura wrote: »
    FroThulhu wrote: »
    I find the background workings of the Star Wars setting incredibly interesting, insofar as they have to do with laser-swords and spaceships going pew-pew.

    Like... in my couple dozen hours playing the Old Republic, I found the implications of massive slaver operations, interstellar gang politics, semi-theological discussions, and the existent of mostly-sapient AI to be incredibly compelling ideas to explore. Insofar as they directly affect laser-swords and spaceships going pew-pew.

    I find the implications of the political slide, the ebb and flow, of the Galactic Empire and the New Republic over the course of decades to be rich in setting potential.

    Because I'm a fucking nerd

    The other few million people who saw the movie(s) don't give a shit, because they're not titanic giganerds. Including the writers and directors.

    I'd love a dynamic political thriller set ten years after the battle of Jakku, featuring Mon Mothma and some stubborn Moff.

    Because I'm a fucking nerd.

    But I also feel like TFA was a widely enjoyable movie because it was shot well, acted well, and the immediate elements of the story (there are bad guys who do bad things, there are good guys who want to make bad things stop happening so much, somebody has magical powers and becomes a good guy; there's a bad guy with magical powers oh noooes!) are presented in broad, brilliantly-colored strokes punctuated by fun character moments.

    And I feel like my nerdy-ass-nerdy desire for more in-depth lore exploration is... nerdy as shit, and entirely unnecessary to the telling of the story.

    Ewoks are my favorite thing. Neither the vast majority of humans anywhere, nor this movie itself, give a single anemic fuck about Ewoks.

    I am deeply confounded by how badly the new Jedi order failed, and that's fairly pertinent to the goings-on in this movie. But the lack of explanation does literally nothing to harm the narrative, except for failing to make it into completely different movie that I would also liked to have seen.

    Which is exactly what the absence of political 'depth' does to TFA.

    Absolutely. Nothing.

    It might have been nice to world build just a little when you have a superweapon that destroys four planets.


    Just saying. There was no emotional attachment at all, because 'politics bad'. Seriously, Disney had a divine mandate to keep it out of the new trilogy.

    If Abrams had done the PT, we'd have no establishment of the Senate at all. Probably someone mentioning in passing that 'oh, that Palpatine guy just took over via a coup and now he's declaring an empire'. If that.

    I felt plenty of emotional attachment in TFA.

    The PT was wooden, horribly written, and (aside from TPM, surprisingly) way too choreographed in the lightsaber fights. None of the actors could even form an emotion because the entire movie was done in a blue room with possibly a prop somewhere, and the actual movies now look absolutely horrible. The OT actually has more believable special effects. I'm not docking a movie because it doesn't have pretty visuals, I'm docking it because I don't believe, not for one second in any of the 3 films, that any of this is happening. Hell, it couldn't even live up to its own themes! The "higher ground" one just as an example!

    That's due to having dialogue nobody would say, a plot progression that makes absolutely no sense, and a world that looks like a PS3 game.

    The PT kills my suspension of disbelief because there's simply too many things that jump out and scream, HEY LOOK I'M A MOVIE! YOU'RE WATCHING A MOVIE WITH ACTORS!

    The further Disney, Abrams, and everyone involved keeps the next two films away from those things, the better.

    jungleroomx on
  • FroThulhuFroThulhu Registered User regular
    edited April 2017
    cj iwakura wrote: »
    FroThulhu wrote: »
    I find the background workings of the Star Wars setting incredibly interesting, insofar as they have to do with laser-swords and spaceships going pew-pew.

    Like... in my couple dozen hours playing the Old Republic, I found the implications of massive slaver operations, interstellar gang politics, semi-theological discussions, and the existent of mostly-sapient AI to be incredibly compelling ideas to explore. Insofar as they directly affect laser-swords and spaceships going pew-pew.

    I find the implications of the political slide, the ebb and flow, of the Galactic Empire and the New Republic over the course of decades to be rich in setting potential.

    Because I'm a fucking nerd

    The other few million people who saw the movie(s) don't give a shit, because they're not titanic giganerds. Including the writers and directors.

    I'd love a dynamic political thriller set ten years after the battle of Jakku, featuring Mon Mothma and some stubborn Moff.

    Because I'm a fucking nerd.

    But I also feel like TFA was a widely enjoyable movie because it was shot well, acted well, and the immediate elements of the story (there are bad guys who do bad things, there are good guys who want to make bad things stop happening so much, somebody has magical powers and becomes a good guy; there's a bad guy with magical powers oh noooes!) are presented in broad, brilliantly-colored strokes punctuated by fun character moments.

    And I feel like my nerdy-ass-nerdy desire for more in-depth lore exploration is... nerdy as shit, and entirely unnecessary to the telling of the story.

    Ewoks are my favorite thing. Neither the vast majority of humans anywhere, nor this movie itself, give a single anemic fuck about Ewoks.

    I am deeply confounded by how badly the new Jedi order failed, and that's fairly pertinent to the goings-on in this movie. But the lack of explanation does literally nothing to harm the narrative, except for failing to make it into completely different movie that I would also liked to have seen.

    Which is exactly what the absence of political 'depth' does to TFA.

    Absolutely. Nothing.

    It might have been nice to world build just a little when you have a superweapon that destroys four planets.


    Just saying. There was no emotional attachment at all, because 'politics bad'. Seriously, Disney had a divine mandate to keep it out of the new trilogy.

    If Abrams had done the PT, we'd have no establishment of the Senate at all. Probably someone mentioning in passing that 'oh, that Palpatine guy just took over via a coup and now he's declaring an empire'. If that.

    Scenes involving the New Republic Senate, or at least a character involved with them, were filmed and then cut. I assume for time. Or probably in favor of more laser-swords and pew-pre, because that's actually what Star Wars movies are about. Or possibly because a bunch of people who don't spend an appreciable quantity of time discussing galactic politics on the internet don't give a shit about that, and rightly surmised that vast, vast majority of filmgoers also don't.

    Star Wars doesn't live and die on the wants of people obsessed with the minutiae of background elements. That's where the Expanded Universe, a give a hack writing and terrible bullshit, lives. No, Star Wars lives and does on the whims of people just like those who stepped into the theatre in 1977, not knowing or expecting anything. The people who walked away from those theaters in '77 and decided that they needed an explanation for every happenstance and detail are some of the earliest specimens of the real high-octane nerd shit that fuels wookipedia and memory alpha.

    Also, the "establishment of the Senate" in the story... hell, the actual senatorial goings-on were the second, eh maybe third, worst part of the shit cookie that is the Prequel Trilogy. Just fucking awful.

    Get hung up on that shit all you want, but that's 100% on what you want to see- not the quality of the film, and not the enjoy-ability of it for Literally Most Humans.

    FroThulhu on
  • jungleroomxjungleroomx It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovels Registered User regular
    FroThulhu wrote: »
    cj iwakura wrote: »
    FroThulhu wrote: »
    I find the background workings of the Star Wars setting incredibly interesting, insofar as they have to do with laser-swords and spaceships going pew-pew.

    Like... in my couple dozen hours playing the Old Republic, I found the implications of massive slaver operations, interstellar gang politics, semi-theological discussions, and the existent of mostly-sapient AI to be incredibly compelling ideas to explore. Insofar as they directly affect laser-swords and spaceships going pew-pew.

    I find the implications of the political slide, the ebb and flow, of the Galactic Empire and the New Republic over the course of decades to be rich in setting potential.

    Because I'm a fucking nerd

    The other few million people who saw the movie(s) don't give a shit, because they're not titanic giganerds. Including the writers and directors.

    I'd love a dynamic political thriller set ten years after the battle of Jakku, featuring Mon Mothma and some stubborn Moff.

    Because I'm a fucking nerd.

    But I also feel like TFA was a widely enjoyable movie because it was shot well, acted well, and the immediate elements of the story (there are bad guys who do bad things, there are good guys who want to make bad things stop happening so much, somebody has magical powers and becomes a good guy; there's a bad guy with magical powers oh noooes!) are presented in broad, brilliantly-colored strokes punctuated by fun character moments.

    And I feel like my nerdy-ass-nerdy desire for more in-depth lore exploration is... nerdy as shit, and entirely unnecessary to the telling of the story.

    Ewoks are my favorite thing. Neither the vast majority of humans anywhere, nor this movie itself, give a single anemic fuck about Ewoks.

    I am deeply confounded by how badly the new Jedi order failed, and that's fairly pertinent to the goings-on in this movie. But the lack of explanation does literally nothing to harm the narrative, except for failing to make it into completely different movie that I would also liked to have seen.

    Which is exactly what the absence of political 'depth' does to TFA.

    Absolutely. Nothing.

    It might have been nice to world build just a little when you have a superweapon that destroys four planets.


    Just saying. There was no emotional attachment at all, because 'politics bad'. Seriously, Disney had a divine mandate to keep it out of the new trilogy.

    If Abrams had done the PT, we'd have no establishment of the Senate at all. Probably someone mentioning in passing that 'oh, that Palpatine guy just took over via a coup and now he's declaring an empire'. If that.

    Scenes involving the New Republic Senate, or at least a character involved with them, were filmed and then cut. I assume for time. Or probably in favor of more laser-swords and pew-pre, because that's actually what Star Wars movies are about. Or possibly because a bunch of people who don't spend an appreciable quantity of time discussing galactic politics on the internet don't give a shit about that, and rightly surmised that vast, vast majority of filmgoers also don't.

    Star Wars doesn't live and die on the wants of people obsessed with the minutiae of background elements. That's where the Expanded Universe, a give a hack writing and terrible bullshit, lives. No, Star Wars lives and does on the whims of people just like those who stepped into the theatre in 1977, not knowing or expecting anything. The people who walked away from those theaters in '77 and decided that they needed an explanation for every happenstance and detail are some of the earliest specimens of the real high-octane need shot that fuels wookipedia and memory alpha.

    Also, the "establishment of the Senate" in the story... hell, the actual senatorial goings-on were the second, eh maybe third, worst part of the shit cookie that is the Prequel Trilogy. Just fucking awful.

    Get hung up on that shit all you want, but that's 100% on what you want to see- not the quality of the film, and not the enjoyability of it for Literally Most Humans.

    If there was any possibility that showing the decline of the Old Republic into the Empire could even be done, and done well, it sure as fuck wouldn't have been at the hands of the guy who made his name making modern pulp serials. The two just simply cannot connect.

  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    Redcoat-13 wrote: »
    I don't even understand what the blockade was blocking in Phantom Menace; why should Naboo actually care? Every scene of that planet makes it seem like its some kind of paradise and yet when Queen Amidala (why does the planet elect young Queens?), shes says people are dying I guess to make things urgent, but there's no evidence of this.

    The whole thing makes no sense.

    Plus the action is boring; the Droids pose absolutely no threat whatsoever.

    Virtually none of the machinations in the prequels made any goddamn sense.

    I mean, the third one literally has a scene consisting of "THIS IS CHOOO-BACCA."

    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
  • TNTrooperTNTrooper Registered User regular
    Your Name is absolutely amazing and gorgeous. My only complaint is the guy behind me decided to start crunching his ice like a fucking barbarian.

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  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    Atomika wrote: »
    I put Office Christmas Party on my year-end Best Of list


    :cool:

    Best of what?

    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
  • ThirithThirith Registered User regular
    TNTrooper wrote: »
    Your Name is absolutely amazing and gorgeous.
    I've heard the title repeatedly during the last week or two, but I know nothing at all about the film. What is it?

    webp-net-resizeimage.jpg
    "Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
  • KanaKana Registered User regular
    Thirith wrote: »
    TNTrooper wrote: »
    Your Name is absolutely amazing and gorgeous.
    I've heard the title repeatedly during the last week or two, but I know nothing at all about the film. What is it?

    Japanese animated movie by Makoto Shinkai. Set the record for highest worldwide gross by a Japanese animated movie, beating out Spirited Away. Very well reviewed.

    A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
  • ThirithThirith Registered User regular
    Thanks. Will definitely check it out - I expect we won't get it at the cinema, or only in limited release, but I'll keep out an eye for it.

    webp-net-resizeimage.jpg
    "Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
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