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thewayneGot some things to vent about.
But some non-spoilery things first.
It was a better ending to a nine-movie slog than I expected, but at the same time it kinda broke parts of the previous two movies of the final trilogy. Which, to me, means that they desperately needed someone like Joss overseeing the entire final three movies to maintain the story over the entire arc. I found that very disappointing. I won't say George could've done better: he proved that he couldn't with eps 1-3, I think they gave JJ too much leash.
On to the parts that disappointed me.
The claim of Fan Service. So many fanfic writers could have done a better job on this movie, or even on the ReyLo pair. It was just sad. I've read so much better material on AO3. And worse, for that matter. Almost zip Poe/Finn, and then Poe meets more of his own and almost zilch development on that!
The return of Palpatine. His strength in the Dark Side was so powerful that he could survive incineration? OK, whatevs. He escapes the destruction of the Death Star, Part 2, and builds The Biggliest battle fleet ever with their planet-killer canons, which apparently no one noticed being tested. Where did he get all the people required to run those ships? That's a tremendous manpower requirement, not to mention the people required to build all of them. And a training base? The place where his HQ was didn't look very good for training, and you don't train on the ship that you're stationed on.
I just don't buy Palpatine as being the big bad for NINE MOVIES. The BB for eps 4-6, sure. For 1-3: yeah, I liked that, it was cool seeing the scheming that led to him becoming emperor. But I really didn't like him being the BB for 7-9 because you just negated Vader's sacrifice and redemption! That bothers me. Now, granted, the giant throne muppet bossing around Kylo in 7 and 8 doesn't make much sense either, I always thought the basis for the BB was weak. Again, poor story arc basis.
But if, as we learn in the first act of the final movie, Palpatine was behind the New Order, First Order, Flying Monkeys, whatever the new fascists were called, then we've made the entire series, all nine movies, about Palpatine's history. Not about The Force bringing peace to the galaxy, not about the Skywalkers who are now extinct, but about one person's overwhelming ambition and lust for power (interesting metaphor). Again, IMO, poor scripting/continuity.
The computer news site Slashdot spoiled the return of Palpatine and his fleet on their front page and received a lot of flack for it since it was not under a cut.
The massive fleet attack at the end of the movie.. Palpatine goes 'booga-booga' and Force zaps all of the good guys while missing all of the bad guys. OK, whatevs. Then the rest of the ships in the universe swoop in and kill the rest of the bad guys.
All of a sudden everyone in the universe is a fighter pilot capable of flying in coordinated tight formation? No friendly fire casualties? No collisions? Think of it this way: take everyone in your neighborhood, mount a pair of .50 cal machineguns - fully automatic - on their cars, give them a radio, take them to a dry lakebed, and tell them all to drive as fast as possible toward a target, shooting as you go. And we're not adding armor to your cars.
Now take all the neighborhoods surrounding yours, put them at different points around you, and give them the same orders.
I ain't doing that!
Yes, it saved the day, but too deus ex machina for me to have this sudden second force truly turn the tide. Talk about a ragtag rebel fleet! At least the rebels were a disciplined force with a command structure.
Ewoks. Why did we need a shot from the moon of Endor? ZERO action there in eps 7 & 8, in the preceding movies only in ep 6 did anything happen there or was there any reference to Endor. So just let it be!
One thing that extraordinarily pissed me off was completely ignoring Luke unlocking The Force in so many people across the universe at the end of Ep 8. That by itself was such a huge plot point, and JJ just retconned it into oblivion, ignored it completely. There were some other things from 7 & 8 that he ignored that I don't recall, but that was the biggie. Could've avoided using a ship fleet untrained in coordinated maneuvers with something like that.
Things that I was curious about:
Force Ghosts. In previous movies, we usually had a role-call of Force Ghosts. We didn't in this one. I found that kind of disappointing. Now, when Kylo sorta died and became Ben, he had his charming little talk with his dead father, whom he murdered, but that was in and of itself weird because Han ascended to be a Force Ghost? Not in my book! Ben having some weird near-death experience? OK, I can buy that, but it's still weird. Oh, and then somehow Ben finds or sufficiently fixes a TIE fighter on that long-since wrecked cruiser and it's now capable of light speed jumps? It was canon at one point that TIEs couldn't jump, they required a mother ship to exit star systems, that was one advantage that most rebel ships had. I have no idea when that changed.
I think JJ should have maintained the Force Ghost Lineup like previous movies did to keep some continuity.
Things that I really liked:
Force Ghost Luke becoming Yoda: Snatching the light saber as Rey throws it into the fire. Awesome. Upping Yoda by lifting his X-Wing out of the water as a Force Ghost. That was pretty awesome. I think that's the longest that we've seen a post-life Force Ghost in contact with someone.
General Comments:
I thought Carrie Fisher's Leia's death was deftly handled. I'm very curious how they digitally replaced her: obviously a stand-in actress and match-move CGI, but I'd like to know more. I'm sure they had enough unused footage from the previous two movies that could be sampled to synthesize a performance. Soon we'll be seeing James Dean on the screen again, how long until we see Carrie in an original role?
Destroyers With Dicks. *sigh* And capable of blowing up planets. *sigh* And destroying the planet penis destroys the destroyer. *sigh*. Looked pretty ridiculous to me. Seems pretty wasteful to equip an entire fleet with these things, shouldn't need more than 25%.
The actor in Chewie did good. The original actor passed away last year, he was in the suit for seated roles in 7 and 8 and the new actor did all the moving/active roles.
The return of Lando. Meh. I expected him, and the role he played wasn't in the least surprising. I was glad to see him return.
Not enough women roles. Diminished General Organa role, for obvious reasons. Rey was the only significant woman. Rose's part was significantly cut back, there was the woman Finn-equivalent, but she didn't get much background until the end with Lando. There were some women on some of the baddie ships, but aside from occasional lines, they were insignificant. If Palpatine survived Ep 6, why not bring back Phasma?! She was an excellent character!
For me, it boils down to the fact that I went to see this movie to see the end of the series, I lost my love for the series with eps 7 and 8, I had no interest in seeing 9 except to complete the series. Dave, my wife and I: none of us were "WE MUST SEE THIS MOVIE! HUZZAH!" It was more "Yeah, it's been out a few weeks and there's nothing we want to see more."
But some non-spoilery things first.
It was a better ending to a nine-movie slog than I expected, but at the same time it kinda broke parts of the previous two movies of the final trilogy. Which, to me, means that they desperately needed someone like Joss overseeing the entire final three movies to maintain the story over the entire arc. I found that very disappointing. I won't say George could've done better: he proved that he couldn't with eps 1-3, I think they gave JJ too much leash.
On to the parts that disappointed me.
The claim of Fan Service. So many fanfic writers could have done a better job on this movie, or even on the ReyLo pair. It was just sad. I've read so much better material on AO3. And worse, for that matter. Almost zip Poe/Finn, and then Poe meets more of his own and almost zilch development on that!
The return of Palpatine. His strength in the Dark Side was so powerful that he could survive incineration? OK, whatevs. He escapes the destruction of the Death Star, Part 2, and builds The Biggliest battle fleet ever with their planet-killer canons, which apparently no one noticed being tested. Where did he get all the people required to run those ships? That's a tremendous manpower requirement, not to mention the people required to build all of them. And a training base? The place where his HQ was didn't look very good for training, and you don't train on the ship that you're stationed on.
I just don't buy Palpatine as being the big bad for NINE MOVIES. The BB for eps 4-6, sure. For 1-3: yeah, I liked that, it was cool seeing the scheming that led to him becoming emperor. But I really didn't like him being the BB for 7-9 because you just negated Vader's sacrifice and redemption! That bothers me. Now, granted, the giant throne muppet bossing around Kylo in 7 and 8 doesn't make much sense either, I always thought the basis for the BB was weak. Again, poor story arc basis.
But if, as we learn in the first act of the final movie, Palpatine was behind the New Order, First Order, Flying Monkeys, whatever the new fascists were called, then we've made the entire series, all nine movies, about Palpatine's history. Not about The Force bringing peace to the galaxy, not about the Skywalkers who are now extinct, but about one person's overwhelming ambition and lust for power (interesting metaphor). Again, IMO, poor scripting/continuity.
The computer news site Slashdot spoiled the return of Palpatine and his fleet on their front page and received a lot of flack for it since it was not under a cut.
The massive fleet attack at the end of the movie.. Palpatine goes 'booga-booga' and Force zaps all of the good guys while missing all of the bad guys. OK, whatevs. Then the rest of the ships in the universe swoop in and kill the rest of the bad guys.
All of a sudden everyone in the universe is a fighter pilot capable of flying in coordinated tight formation? No friendly fire casualties? No collisions? Think of it this way: take everyone in your neighborhood, mount a pair of .50 cal machineguns - fully automatic - on their cars, give them a radio, take them to a dry lakebed, and tell them all to drive as fast as possible toward a target, shooting as you go. And we're not adding armor to your cars.
Now take all the neighborhoods surrounding yours, put them at different points around you, and give them the same orders.
I ain't doing that!
Yes, it saved the day, but too deus ex machina for me to have this sudden second force truly turn the tide. Talk about a ragtag rebel fleet! At least the rebels were a disciplined force with a command structure.
Ewoks. Why did we need a shot from the moon of Endor? ZERO action there in eps 7 & 8, in the preceding movies only in ep 6 did anything happen there or was there any reference to Endor. So just let it be!
One thing that extraordinarily pissed me off was completely ignoring Luke unlocking The Force in so many people across the universe at the end of Ep 8. That by itself was such a huge plot point, and JJ just retconned it into oblivion, ignored it completely. There were some other things from 7 & 8 that he ignored that I don't recall, but that was the biggie. Could've avoided using a ship fleet untrained in coordinated maneuvers with something like that.
Things that I was curious about:
Force Ghosts. In previous movies, we usually had a role-call of Force Ghosts. We didn't in this one. I found that kind of disappointing. Now, when Kylo sorta died and became Ben, he had his charming little talk with his dead father, whom he murdered, but that was in and of itself weird because Han ascended to be a Force Ghost? Not in my book! Ben having some weird near-death experience? OK, I can buy that, but it's still weird. Oh, and then somehow Ben finds or sufficiently fixes a TIE fighter on that long-since wrecked cruiser and it's now capable of light speed jumps? It was canon at one point that TIEs couldn't jump, they required a mother ship to exit star systems, that was one advantage that most rebel ships had. I have no idea when that changed.
I think JJ should have maintained the Force Ghost Lineup like previous movies did to keep some continuity.
Things that I really liked:
Force Ghost Luke becoming Yoda: Snatching the light saber as Rey throws it into the fire. Awesome. Upping Yoda by lifting his X-Wing out of the water as a Force Ghost. That was pretty awesome. I think that's the longest that we've seen a post-life Force Ghost in contact with someone.
General Comments:
I thought Carrie Fisher's Leia's death was deftly handled. I'm very curious how they digitally replaced her: obviously a stand-in actress and match-move CGI, but I'd like to know more. I'm sure they had enough unused footage from the previous two movies that could be sampled to synthesize a performance. Soon we'll be seeing James Dean on the screen again, how long until we see Carrie in an original role?
Destroyers With Dicks. *sigh* And capable of blowing up planets. *sigh* And destroying the planet penis destroys the destroyer. *sigh*. Looked pretty ridiculous to me. Seems pretty wasteful to equip an entire fleet with these things, shouldn't need more than 25%.
The actor in Chewie did good. The original actor passed away last year, he was in the suit for seated roles in 7 and 8 and the new actor did all the moving/active roles.
The return of Lando. Meh. I expected him, and the role he played wasn't in the least surprising. I was glad to see him return.
Not enough women roles. Diminished General Organa role, for obvious reasons. Rey was the only significant woman. Rose's part was significantly cut back, there was the woman Finn-equivalent, but she didn't get much background until the end with Lando. There were some women on some of the baddie ships, but aside from occasional lines, they were insignificant. If Palpatine survived Ep 6, why not bring back Phasma?! She was an excellent character!
For me, it boils down to the fact that I went to see this movie to see the end of the series, I lost my love for the series with eps 7 and 8, I had no interest in seeing 9 except to complete the series. Dave, my wife and I: none of us were "WE MUST SEE THIS MOVIE! HUZZAH!" It was more "Yeah, it's been out a few weeks and there's nothing we want to see more."
no subject
Date: 2020-01-12 06:34 pm (UTC)And the more I read about this movie, the more I'm willing to throw the entire sequel trilogy out and reconstruct some sort of canon sequel trilogy that focuses on Finn's defection and Phasma's attempts to bring him back against the backdrop of resistance fighters and fascists both trying to find the strongest Force presence they have felt in a generation, Rey. Poe can exist, as the hotshot pilot who is terrible at actual military anything, and is therefore tasked with finding Rey to keep him out of the way of General Leia. With Rose helping keep his bucket of bolts working enough to succeed, and possibly falling hard for Finn in the same way that Poe might be. It would be a better movie set.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-12 11:30 pm (UTC)(I don't think it invalidates Vader's sacrifice, either. His sacrifice still matters, and the galaxy was still saved -- *then*. It just the work needs to continue. Also, because of Rey's *choices*, the Skywalkers are not, actually, extinct. JFTR.)
The Huge Massive Fleet was just ... not reasonable.
The main reason I'm commenting is because, yes, Abrams seems to have intended Broom Boy and his cohort to be completely irrelevant, and to ignore that (very good) plot point from TLJ, *but* -- Finn and his Force Sensitive Friends can be seen as a thread of that. They can be seen as the Force awakening in people you don't expect it in, as an expansion of that possibility. Or, I'd like to think of it that way, because I want to keep some of that thread.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-14 11:14 pm (UTC)I'd pay to watch that on PPV. I doubt that there'd even be much difficulty finding volunteers to drive the cars.
How is that any less believable than the rest of "Star Wars", though? I saw the first movie (almost a half-century ago, now) when I was in high school. It wasn't proper science fiction by any stretch. It was goofy, and the plot was full of holes, but it was fun to watch, visually fascinating, with wonderful sets and props, and it had a magnificent soundtrack. I never bothered with the sequels, though.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-14 11:22 pm (UTC)People freak when I tell them the plot is lifted straight from classic westerns and that Lucas took a lot of inspiration from Akira Kurosawa and his samurai classics. And then I explain the links and you can see the comprehension seep in to their brains.