Because Lucas wasn't above cash grabs? O_O
I like TFA just fine, and think it got the interest going again. I don't think it is held in as low of a view as it appears on the Internet. I just think that TLJ is no longer safe from criticism.
The Last Jedi Box Office discussion thread
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I like TFA just fine, and think it got the interest going again. I don't think it is held in as low of a view as it appears on the Internet. I just think that TLJ is no longer safe from criticism.
Well of course Lucas was about cash grabs, he kinda invented it. When Disney does it, somehow It feels dirty.. I'm kinda not bothered by Lucas doing it, as it was his idea, and I don't begrudge a brilliant creator maximizing his own franchise profits, as he deserves it being his idea. But yea, TLJ is gonna get more criticism because of TFA's post mortem.. It could go the other way tho..
Then again, no movie should be safe from criticism, simply because of its franchise name recognition, that would be stupid. Its like saying just because you love the subject, everything should be liked... That's too much devotion and blind Faith for anything, much less a 3rd expansion of a franchise.
When has Star Wars ever been "safe from criticism" exactly? There was no shortage of negative reviews for the OT back in the day, TFA was still in it's first week when all the "it's an exact copy of ANH" beetling started and Rogue One was being criticised before anyone had even seen the damn thing.
Saferer I guess. I mean, it felt like the criticism became more intense over time. My point is largely that criticism of TLJ will come right out of the gate, without any hesitation.
That's normal for anyone ongoing concern. The more they put out there, the more it's talked about and the more the percentage of that talk that is critical will seem a lot louder than it really is.
Personally, I didn't see any real hesitation in criticism for TFA. Indeed, the most vigorous seemed to be from fan who'd grown up with the prequels and were butting heads with the old fogies who were fanboying over the return of "their" Star Wars.
I saw the opposite. I saw the excitement and the "Oh, that was great" only to transform in to more annoyance and ANH comparisons. Not sure if it was the initial excitement that Star Wars was back and gave way to what individuals see as problems.
I think the vigorousness I saw was far more the ANH comparisons and that Abrams was a hack who ruined another franchise. It just feels far more present now, or the criticisms are just being repeated.
Regardless, TLJ will be excoriated without mercy from release.
Great. "Fogie" is now any ol' sod who's older than 35, yay... I miss the days when those who were old were looked up to instead of spat on as being disposable broken sick things. But back then we didn't have as much disinformation either.
Nor should it be about a certain cordoned off age group. Any fan of a franchise will inevitably see where cannibalization rots in. Or, if it were a big book, you know they would say "Well these chapters weren't my favorite but they added stuff. I love these chapters. That one is okayt. But wehen we gfet to chapters 7 and 8 they feel like the writers ran out of anything and just copied previous chapters but changed the names. Yawn."
This is why I consider this release as a particularly important one for the franchise. As much as I deride TFA for being so utterly derivative it largely gets a pass for being a 'safe' entry to introduce the franchise to a new generation of viewers. The Last Jedi won't get cut that kind of slack.
That is not due to fatigue, that's just do to the fact that they ship out shit loads of the stuff, but since they make it's release a big event everybody who wants it rushes out and buys it right after it comes out. The first couple weeks it was out the stuff was flying off the shelves at the Wal-Mart where I work.
TFA was all new worlds, cities, and except for the Falcon new ships, and except for a few returning characters new aliens. I'll admit some of it was basically just new versions of stuff from ANH, but it was still new and not those things. At least in terms of percentage, I think we proabably got more new aliens in TFA than we did in any one of the prequels.
I haven't really noticed any difference in the merchandising between Lucas and Disney.
This is my point as well. I think that TFA's major story beats could be stated to be derivative, and Starkiller base attack run, but that's about it. The larger character developments of Finn and Rey and their individual awkenings are very mythic in their scope and really reflective of the impact of the Big 3 and their own myth status within their own world.
TFA is very new with its characters, their arcs, and the way it ends. It is largely mythological in building these new characters and their awakening to their own potential.
Same here.
Jakku was just Tatooine all over again, bar the crashed Star Destroyer (which admittedly looked good) one of the places that got destroyed by Starkiller base just looked like Coruscant, even Starkiller base just looked like Hoth - and all the other locales looked too earth-like for me. I dunno, I just found it wanting visually.
Compare these places to Cloud City or the underwater city in The Phantom Menace, or the some of the grand architecture at Naboo or the Jedi Temple, or some of the other places in the Prequels, which for my money were trying much harder to show crazy alien worlds.
I haven't got a problem with the character arcs of Finn and Rey, it was just the lack of creativity visually that I dislike about TFA.
But, I would honestly expect that narratively. The galaxy changed but we didn't go to the places were those changes had happened. We went to the places of history, of were the Empire was defeated, of Han's misadeventures and the unveiling of the new threat of the First Order in Starkiller.
Fair point, I was just expecting more from the movie visually - why another desert planet, and another trench run to destroy a Death Star?.
Let's hope TLJ delivers on this front. No pressure.
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There is something about a desert that is visually dynamic in terms of a characters and their growth. It may be visually familiar enough for the audience to connect in, since these characters will be strange and new. There is something narratively that is important about a desert, and with Rey, it may be the stagnation of her abilities until they are fully awoken. Similarly, Finn has to visually crash down, away from his former life, and slowly build himself back up, going to the same environments and awakenings as Rey, but changed and challenge.Fair point, I was just expecting more from the movie visually - why another desert planet, and another trench run to destroy a Death Star?.
Let's hope TLJ delivers on this front. No pressure.
We may sit there as an audience and go "Oh, another desert" but narratively and visually there is something very dynamic going on.
However, the trench is a little frustrating.
There is something about a desert that is visually dynamic in terms of a characters and their growth. It may be visually familiar enough for the audience to connect in, since these characters will be strange and new. There is something narratively that is important about a desert, and with Rey, it may be the stagnation of her abilities until they are fully awoken. Similarly, Finn has to visually crash down, away from his former life, and slowly build himself back up, going to the same environments and awakenings as Rey, but changed and challenge.
We may sit there as an audience and go "Oh, another desert" but narratively and visually there is something very dynamic going on.
However, the trench is a little frustrating.
Hmmm. I can see where you're coming from but I would have liked to have seen another setting - maybe a big smoky industrial shithole of a place that she's desperate to get away from or something like that?
But she isn't desperate to get away, that's part of her story. Regardless of what I would like to see Jakku fits her story. It is a "shithole" and nobody else wants to go to Jakku, much less stay there. Han didn't think to look there, Finn never wants to go back again, and actively questions Poe and Rey. Maz has to call Rey out on her fear of leaving Jakku, despite it being a desert world with nothing to offer her.
Thematically it is extremely important, far more so than the cursory evaluation of Jakku=Tatooine would allow.
The trench run bit was a little deceptive. They did it briefly and it basically let Poe enter that part of Starkiller Base, which is more Battle of Endor than Battle of Yavin. Plus the kill didn't come down to a one in a billion shot. It came down to the guy being a skilled pilot who wasn't afraid of flying into a tiny space and then wrecking everything inside. No Force moment for that...just pilot skill.
Honestly, you could say that about all the supposed similarities between TFA and ANH. By all appearances, that criticism is valid, but it's also a bit vapid and surface level in that analysis, because the characters and their behavior are different and the state of the galaxy is far more tenuous.
