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[Star Wars] so you didn't send the fish Jedi immediately because...?

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  • Munkus BeaverMunkus Beaver You don't have to attend every argument you are invited to. Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    Shivahn wrote: »
    And superweapon proliferation

    Yeah, this needs to be fixed to stop it from being eye-rolly.

    Perhaps a new trilogy which centers on the space-SALT conferences between various factions. There is precedent for Star Wars trilogies involving issues such as trade disputes!

    New trilogy has Death Star lasers fire out of stormtrooper blasters

    Now their terrible aim is their greatest advantage

    Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    Use of clones was fairly predictable since they'd been well-established in the movies.

    'New superweapon' doesn't have to be pulled from the old EU.
    In fact, those tended to show more originality by at least being different from 'like the Death Star, but bigger'.

    They weren't good, but they at least showed more imagination.

    Like, the original Darksaber wasn't a bad idea in theory. Take the Death Star laser, scale it down to where it blows up spaceships but leaves planets standing (why blow up the things you want to conquer?), strip out the rest of the ball, and you've got the basis for a decent weapon and a credible threat.
    Then they decided to play it for comedy/stupidity by adding no other defences of any kind (so a single fighter could have just stayed out of the front and plinked it to death), have it be made by incompetents so it doesn't actually work, then have it destroyed by asteroids because they chose to build it in the Hoth asteroid field because every EU book must by international law have one of the seven locations used in the trilogy no matter how little sense it made.

    But in theory it wasn't a bad concept. At first I thought they'd taken that for the destroyers in TRoS, but then it turned out they were thinking of Independence Day instead.

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    I don't count the Palpatine clone as being pulled from the EU because I'm dead certain that Abrams was totally convinced it was a brilliant, unique, nobody-will-ever-expect-this idea and had no clue the EU did that ages ago. So it's not an EU legacy thing, it's just parallel terrible ideas from terrible writing. This also makes it even more appalling that it's now canon again because the whole point of wiping the EU was to get rid of the worst of the junk holding the franchise back, and clone Palpatine wasn't quite Vong stuff but it was still real bad.

    You could also tell me Abrams never even watched the whole OT and thus also thought one-upping the trilogy superweapon was also an original idea and I'd believe that easily.

    To be fair to the OT, the Death Star II's role in RotJ wasn't the imminent existential threat that the OG Death Star, Star Killer Base, and the fleet of Star Destroyers with laser wangs was. It was unfinished (a writing decision specifically so that it wouldn't seem quite as threatening) and mostly there as part of the bait for the trap. It's not exactly a subversion of the trope, but it's certainly a more interesting use of a superweapon than what was done in TFA and RoS.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    I liked one book where it looked like they were making their own mini-superlaser knockoff to fight the bad aliens, then it turned out it was just a scam to force them into attacking too early.
    Then they showed their actual secret superweapon, which was basically "hey, what if we ram this pointy spaceship into their spaceship then blow it up?"

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • RingoRingo He/Him a distinct lack of substanceRegistered User regular
    I've never gotten the feeling from anything JJ Abrams has done that he cares about "wowing" audiences with his plot twists, because he never even thinks about the twists at all. JJ is the pinnacle of the 'all sizzle, no steak' spectacle because he doesn't want the steak and doesn't understand why people keep asking for it

    Asking him to plan ahead or examine the history of the setting is useless as neither of those things impact the way he creates. If you want that to happen you've got to tie JJ to a creative person who cares about those things and make sure that person has final approval on everything.

    Sterica wrote: »
    I know my last visit to my grandpa on his deathbed was to find out how the whole Nazi werewolf thing turned out.
    Edcrab's Exigency RPG
  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    Ringo wrote: »
    I've never gotten the feeling from anything JJ Abrams has done that he cares about "wowing" audiences with his plot twists, because he never even thinks about the twists at all. JJ is the pinnacle of the 'all sizzle, no steak' spectacle because he doesn't want the steak and doesn't understand why people keep asking for it

    Asking him to plan ahead or examine the history of the setting is useless as neither of those things impact the way he creates. If you want that to happen you've got to tie JJ to a creative person who cares about those things and make sure that person has final approval on everything.

    Yeah, the reveal of Luke's parentage had weight because Luke was invested in the belief that his father was a good person and Vader had murdered him. That gives Vader's truth bomb a lot of weight because it completely changes the relationship between the characters plus the not minor fact that Obi Wan and Yoda had been hiding rather important things from him. The Palpatine has nothing like that to work with, so that twist was about as shocking as the "My name <dramatic pause> Is Khan." line in Into Darkness was to someone who had never actually seen WoK. Which was the case for two of my friends and let me tell you just how little impact it had on them.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • RingoRingo He/Him a distinct lack of substanceRegistered User regular
    I will say that moment in Into Darkness, while just completely stupid and genuinely terrible, did give me a treasured movie memory.

    When Bendynoodle said the line the theater went dead silent (a mix of shock and nerds trying not to laugh) and into that silence rang the voice of one man, who said to himself in a rather worried tone

    "OH THEY'RE REALLY FUCKED NOW"

    And I have never been a part of such a spontaneous explosion of laughter in my life before or since. It was delightful and it's really a shame the movie kept on going (by the time the Tribble thing happened the audience was just openly groaning at the movie)

    Sterica wrote: »
    I know my last visit to my grandpa on his deathbed was to find out how the whole Nazi werewolf thing turned out.
    Edcrab's Exigency RPG
  • hlprmnkyhlprmnky Registered User regular
    Ringo wrote: »
    I will say that moment in Into Darkness, while just completely stupid and genuinely terrible, did give me a treasured movie memory.

    When Bendynoodle said the line the theater went dead silent (a mix of shock and nerds trying not to laugh) and into that silence rang the voice of one man, who said to himself in a rather worried tone

    "OH THEY'RE REALLY FUCKED NOW"

    And I have never been a part of such a spontaneous explosion of laughter in my life before or since. It was delightful and it's really a shame the movie kept on going (by the time the Tribble thing happened the audience was just openly groaning at the movie)

    This reminds me of a similarly treasured memory: seeing The Phantom Menace on opening day with a bunch of work colleagues over lunch in a packed theater, and in that moment of silence as we see Maul tumble down the power station shaft to his death the second phase of his Sith career, someone several rows in front of us yelled out “Obi-Wan’s my dad!”

    _
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  • MegaMan001MegaMan001 CRNA Rochester, MNRegistered User regular
    Has TFA in the background and man that smile Poe gives Finn is smoldering.

    Huge missed opportunity to make them gay together which would have moved Star Wats forward and hopefully jettisoned the toxic fans at the same time (who would claim boycott and still watch everything).

    Seems like a safe move to me, too. TFA was going to gross billions regardless of what was actually in the movie.

    I am in the business of saving lives.
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    MegaMan001 wrote: »
    Has TFA in the background and man that smile Poe gives Finn is smoldering.

    Huge missed opportunity to make them gay together which would have moved Star Wats forward and hopefully jettisoned the toxic fans at the same time (who would claim boycott and still watch everything).

    Seems like a safe move to me, too. TFA was going to gross billions regardless of what was actually in the movie.

    They couldn't even have Finn hook up with a white lady. Disney can't even get to 1967's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, let alone 2005's Brokeback Mountain.

    shryke on
  • VoodooVVoodooV Registered User regular
    daveNYC wrote: »
    I think Solo is what really did it. A very troubled production and it flopped* at the box office. RoS really drove the point home, but Solo is what stopped the 'Star Wars Stories' side movies.

    *A flop considering that it was a young Han Solo Star Wars movie and Disney is expecting Avengers level profits out of these things.

    What's funny is that I didn't think Solo was *that* bad. But I think that's also because after TLJ, I went in with such low expectations, that Solo actually seemed adequate. Hated that final post credits scene though. Just one movie without a force user or lightsaber igniting. So close!

    So I blame it on TLJ, TLJ being junk, but still highly profitable because of the Star Wars name, led people to have hype fatigue for the next movie and spend less money on a non-"Episode" movie.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    A strong hypothesis except for the fact that TLJ was quite good.

  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    Oh God, do people still have different opinions about things? I thought we'd evolved past that to all become part of the Omni-Mind.

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • monkeykinsmonkeykins Registered User regular
    We are all united behind the common cause of never giving JJ another movie.

  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    There isn't much evidence general audiences disliked TLJ much at all. Pretty much everything puts it in line with earlier stuff.

    Couscous on
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    klemming wrote: »
    Oh God, do people still have different opinions about things? I thought we'd evolved past that to all become part of the Omni-Mind.

    How you express those opinions matter! The distinction between saying you don't like something and saying something is bad is important.

    I really don't like The Godfather. I wouldn't call it garbage or make inferences about a studio's actions based on the assumption that it's garbage.

    Quid on
  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    A strong hypothesis except for the fact that TLJ was quite good.

    It was quite well made movie. If the various plots, threads and themes didn’t work for someone they’re not likely to call it a good movie.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    daveNYC wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    A strong hypothesis except for the fact that TLJ was quite good.

    It was quite well made movie. If the various plots, threads and themes didn’t work for someone they’re not likely to call it a good movie.

    Like I said above, there is a difference between not liking something and saying it's bad. Especially when using it to justify a correlation. Someone personally disliking TLJ is not why Solo did poorly.

  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    daveNYC wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    A strong hypothesis except for the fact that TLJ was quite good.

    It was quite well made movie. If the various plots, threads and themes didn’t work for someone they’re not likely to call it a good movie.

    Like I said above, there is a difference between not liking something and saying it's bad. Especially when using it to justify a correlation. Someone personally disliking TLJ is not why Solo did poorly.

    In my case TLJ certainly didn’t help things. I probably wasn’t going to see Solo anyway. A young Han Solo movie that was going to be a straight origin story really held little appeal for me. If they’d gone with something like The Authority novels I would have been much more interested in things. But TLJ crashing for me in the last act (and it was on shaky ground already thanks to the whole intro sequence and the casino planet) wasn’t exactly encouraging me to buy a ticket.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • RedTideRedTide Registered User regular
    You know what I'm gonna do? Go into a thread to say the one thing in the one way that guarantees an adversarial response every single time.

    Oh and also be wrong doing it

    RedTide#1907 on Battle.net
    Come Overwatch with meeeee
  • AbsoluteZeroAbsoluteZero The new film by Quentin Koopantino Registered User regular
    TROS was the only true disappointment for me off the ST. I really thought it should at least be as good as TFA with JJ at the helm. But no. It was a godawful movie by committee mess.

    cs6f034fsffl.jpg
  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    Was it by committee? Or was JJ and his team that fucking bad at making a movie the followed TLJ?

  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    Was it by committee? Or was JJ and his team that fucking bad at making a movie the followed TLJ?
    i think it was knee-jerk response to noise about TLJ.
    "Okay, what didn't people like about TLJ? Right, we'll do the opposite of that in every case."

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • monkeykinsmonkeykins Registered User regular
    TLJ almost killed SW for me. I almost didn't go see Solo. I can understand how people would have left TLJ and said "you know what? I guess I don't need to keep going to see a Star Wars movie every year." So that argument makes sense to me.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    monkeykins wrote: »
    TLJ almost killed SW for me. I almost didn't go see Solo. I can understand how people would have left TLJ and said "you know what? I guess I don't need to keep going to see a Star Wars movie every year." So that argument makes sense to me.

    And this is a way better way to phrase that sentiment.

  • honoverehonovere Registered User regular
    Committing to the one movie every year was such a creatively bankrupt strategy. But setting a release date and then squeeze in a production before having a script and such is not a problem with just star wars

  • RedTideRedTide Registered User regular
    TROS and Solo are borderline objectively the worst two movies put out in the Disney era.

    The big difference between them is that you could take the Solo script and salvage a watchable movie out of that story and TROS is that flawed that I would demand you prove it by rewriting the script yourself if you claimed the same.

    RedTide#1907 on Battle.net
    Come Overwatch with meeeee
  • monkeykinsmonkeykins Registered User regular
    Donald Glover was a delight and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

  • PailryderPailryder Registered User regular
    while watching TLJ in theaters, the luke still really really did not sit well with me but i really enjoyed the end of the movie. i walked away thinking that TLJ was not good overall. Upon further reflection some things have come off better and some things even worse. I still can watch the whole movie and enjoy it. I have no plans to watch TROS again because there's nothing in that movie that was a WOW moment.

  • ShivahnShivahn Unaware of her barrel shifter privilege Western coastal temptressRegistered User, Moderator mod
    Pailryder wrote: »
    while watching TLJ in theaters, the luke still really really did not sit well with me but i really enjoyed the end of the movie. i walked away thinking that TLJ was not good overall. Upon further reflection some things have come off better and some things even worse. I still can watch the whole movie and enjoy it. I have no plans to watch TROS again because there's nothing in that movie that was a WOW moment.

    I am a little tempted to watch TROS again, because there's no way it's as much of a terrible shambling zombie hulk as I remember, right?

    Right?

  • KetarKetar Come on upstairs we're having a partyRegistered User regular
    Shivahn wrote: »
    Pailryder wrote: »
    while watching TLJ in theaters, the luke still really really did not sit well with me but i really enjoyed the end of the movie. i walked away thinking that TLJ was not good overall. Upon further reflection some things have come off better and some things even worse. I still can watch the whole movie and enjoy it. I have no plans to watch TROS again because there's nothing in that movie that was a WOW moment.

    I am a little tempted to watch TROS again, because there's no way it's as much of a terrible shambling zombie hulk as I remember, right?

    Right?

    I had to see it twice in theaters. I'd preordered a ticket for myself to see it the opening Friday, with tickets to take my wife and kids the following Monday since school was out for break then. I wanted to be able to watch it without getting interrupted by a million questions from my kids and however many bathroom trips would be needed.

    That was, of course, a huge mistake. It didn't get any better the second time through. There were no, "Oh, now I see what they were going for here" kind of moments. Nothing made any more sense or felt like it came together better. It just felt like punishment.

  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    Pailryder wrote: »
    while watching TLJ in theaters, the luke still really really did not sit well with me but i really enjoyed the end of the movie. i walked away thinking that TLJ was not good overall. Upon further reflection some things have come off better and some things even worse. I still can watch the whole movie and enjoy it. I have no plans to watch TROS again because there's nothing in that movie that was a WOW moment.

    TLJ had actual real scenes (as opposed to Stuff Happening!) and character moments and some beautiful shots. RoS is just this mish mash of crap that burned me out after the first 30 minutes. Hell, I was starting to check out after the hyperspace skipping scene.

    One thing that needs to be remembered is that the guy who wrote Batman vs Superman and Justice League has a screenwriting credit on this movie. I can’t even even how that happened.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • KamarKamar Registered User regular
    It's extremely bizarre to me the way writing seems to be treated in Hollywood.

    It's like, oh, he has credentials on this other big movie, so he's qualified for the position. No one ever even considers the fact that those movies were infamous for bad writing? The bad writing the bad writer(s) did?

    Even assuming it's all about connections and networking I don't get it when you've reached such heights of infamy.

    Then again, even film critics don't seem to care about writing too much, much less mass audiences, so maybe they're right to just not care.

  • Atlas in ChainsAtlas in Chains Registered User regular
    Solo was doomed before anybody even saw it. Nobody wanted it, the production was a mess, and there has always been a group of doomsayers proclaiming that Star Wars fatigue was about to set in. Release date right in the Avengers refractory period. It's just subpar, but subpar wasn't ever going to be able to turn the tide of negativity.

    TRoS is the rare movie that I hated while watching it. I usually enjoy everything, even if I'm making mental notes about things I don't like. It takes a day or two for me to put the experience down and judge a movie on its merits. I loathed TRoS from the opening scene and it never got any better.

  • OptyOpty Registered User regular
    I think I actively disliked TRoS more than any of the other movies, including the prequels. It just puts a bad taste in your mouth from the word go with the crawl revealing utter bullshit and then just gets worse from there.

  • ShadowenShadowen Snores in the morning LoserdomRegistered User regular
    Opty wrote: »
    I think I actively disliked TRoS more than any of the other movies, including the prequels. It just puts a bad taste in your mouth from the word go with the crawl revealing utter bullshit and then just gets worse from there.

    I've said it in these threads before but TROS is the only Star Wars movie I've seen in a theater where I actively disliked it while I was watching it for the first time. (i.e. I liked the prequels, Rogue One, Solo, TFA, and TLJ, even though I've soured on some of them since. Clone Wars and the OT are exempted because I didn't see those for the first time in a theater.)

    Ten minutes in I knew that the movie had lost me and it never won me back.

  • autono-wally, erotibot300autono-wally, erotibot300 love machine Registered User regular
    Kamar wrote: »
    It's extremely bizarre to me the way writing seems to be treated in Hollywood.

    It's like, oh, he has credentials on this other big movie, so he's qualified for the position. No one ever even considers the fact that those movies were infamous for bad writing? The bad writing the bad writer(s) did?

    Even assuming it's all about connections and networking I don't get it when you've reached such heights of infamy.

    Then again, even film critics don't seem to care about writing too much, much less mass audiences, so maybe they're right to just not care.
    What's "good credentials" isn't only "makes a script that makes sense"

    It's also "is good to work with", "does rewrites when asked to" and "finishes on time"

    Basically, writing a script is an art, and work. If you can write an amazing script, but you're hard to work with, or never on time, chances are, you won't get many chances to write those amazing scripts

    kFJhXwE.jpgkFJhXwE.jpg
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Kamar wrote: »
    It's extremely bizarre to me the way writing seems to be treated in Hollywood.

    It's like, oh, he has credentials on this other big movie, so he's qualified for the position. No one ever even considers the fact that those movies were infamous for bad writing? The bad writing the bad writer(s) did?

    Even assuming it's all about connections and networking I don't get it when you've reached such heights of infamy.

    Then again, even film critics don't seem to care about writing too much, much less mass audiences, so maybe they're right to just not care.
    What's "good credentials" isn't only "makes a script that makes sense"

    It's also "is good to work with", "does rewrites when asked to" and "finishes on time"

    Basically, writing a script is an art, and work. If you can write an amazing script, but you're hard to work with, or never on time, chances are, you won't get many chances to write those amazing scripts

    Also if your script makes a lot of money, you get more work. Even if it sucked.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Shivahn wrote: »
    Pailryder wrote: »
    while watching TLJ in theaters, the luke still really really did not sit well with me but i really enjoyed the end of the movie. i walked away thinking that TLJ was not good overall. Upon further reflection some things have come off better and some things even worse. I still can watch the whole movie and enjoy it. I have no plans to watch TROS again because there's nothing in that movie that was a WOW moment.

    I am a little tempted to watch TROS again, because there's no way it's as much of a terrible shambling zombie hulk as I remember, right?

    Right?

    I went with a friend and his son.

    I left after the desert chase. There were things I appreciated on the second viewing, none of them worth it.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Opty wrote: »
    I think I actively disliked TRoS more than any of the other movies, including the prequels. It just puts a bad taste in your mouth from the word go with the crawl revealing utter bullshit and then just gets worse from there.

    The thing that makes it worse imo is that it's directly connected to films and characters I enjoyed. It's supposed to be the ending of the ST. Like the PT you can just ignore. It sucked yeah, but you can just ignore it's existence and nothing about, say, the OT changes if you do that. But TROS is the conclusion to the arc of characters I actually cared about and they fucked it up amazingly badly and that makes it worse.

This discussion has been closed.