JJ's era and excess if not unfair blame on Rian Johnson

Discussion in 'Star Wars' started by Qonundrum, Apr 28, 2019.

  1. Kemaiku

    Kemaiku Admiral Admiral

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    You need to watch this show. Now.
     
  2. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Negative. Busy trying to sell a house.
     
  3. Kemaiku

    Kemaiku Admiral Admiral

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    Not this very second, but soon.
     
  4. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

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    I have the official cookbook. Great show with even better joke burgers.
     
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  5. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    My problem is when I think of Bob's Burgers I think of Bob's Big Boy which is a chain in California I use to go to.

    It's a weird mental disconnect for me.
     
  6. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

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    A burger restaurant is part of the show. Bob and his family run one and live above it.
     
  7. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I mean, I get the premise. Just, it's my mind being weird.
     
  8. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I'm a huge Bob's Burgers fan, and the movie is one my most anticipated for next year.
     
  9. Professor Zoom

    Professor Zoom Admiral Admiral

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    FYI, this is when I stopped reading, and I'll tell you why... I get turned off quick when someone masquerades opinion as a fact in order to bolster another one of their opinions. It's cool having an opinion and all, but, don't pretend opinion is fact.
     
  10. Set Harth

    Set Harth Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Johnson's whole shtick is "deny the audience what they came to see, then tell them they're wrong for wanting it".

    Can you get away with that kind of thing for an entire trilogy?

    I suppose we shall see...
     
  11. crookeddy

    crookeddy Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    The embarrassing part was me just arguing that a new movie won't come just a day before a whole trilogy was announced.

    I loved the last jedi.
     
  12. EnderAKH

    EnderAKH Commodore Premium Member

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    Ok, if that is his "whole shtick," how does that apply to Looper, Brick, and The Brothers Bloom?
     
  13. crookeddy

    crookeddy Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Brothers Bloom was awful...
     
  14. JRoss

    JRoss Commodore Commodore

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    I liked both of the sequels. TLJ was better, tho. JJ Abrams is talented but self-indulgent. He has the bad habit of setting up mystery in place of real story, and historically he doesn't finish his mysteries, or when he does, it's not very satisfying.

    He did like three episodes of LOST. That's it, but he gets credit for the whole show. His shows have a tendency to get cancelled after one season. He umped ship from Star Trek when he got a better offer, not finishing up the story. This isn't to say that he is untalented; he's amazing. But the man has some glaring issues.

    These issues show up in TFA:
    -Giving us characters like Captain Phasma, who has something like 90 seconds of screen time and little to do, then setting fans up to expect more of them. People got mad that she died off so quickly in TLJ. If JJ couldn't be bothered to make her cool, Rian's not obligated to do the heavy lifting. Ditto for Maz Kanata.

    -Luke in exile. So Luke's been away for the last 10 years while problems are happening, but it's Rian who made him a coward? Again, not Rian's job to fix it.

    Going into TLJ I KNEW how it was going to go. Rey was going to get kidnapped by Snoke and the film was going to end with her still gone and Snoke having won. We were going to need to wait another two years for any sort of resolution because that's how Star Wars works. And then Rian went and killed Snoke. Awesome.
     
  15. Set Harth

    Set Harth Vice Admiral Admiral

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    But Maz was used well enough in TFA, it didn't seem underdone. Her appearance in TLJ, on the other hand, is barely a cameo.
     
  16. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    All it shows is expectations and assumptions .
     
  17. Gaith

    Gaith Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I think both are at fault. It's documented that Abrams planned to have Luke be meditating and floating rocks when Rey found him, which suggests that Abrams intended that A) Luke had gone off in search of some mystical wisdom or power but got stranded somehow, with no means to return or even contact his friends, or B) Luke had gone off to chill out, and was just waiting for a new hero to invite him back. Rian asked JJ to cut the floating rocks, essentially making the choice to go with B at the end of Ep. VII. (And with the added wrinkles that Luke presumably deliberately trashed his own X-Wing, and had forsaken the Force entirely.) So, yes, Abrams boxed Rian into a corner, but Rian played some part in getting himself there, also.

    Now, I think TFA is crap for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with that ending, many of which are addressed in the OP's video, and frankly even Option A would have been rather unpromising from a dramatic perspective, in that a fired up, ready-to-ass-whup Luke, as fun as that might have been in isolation, would likely have streamrolled over the new characters and other plots entirely. It's frankly damned hard to imagine an Abrams Episode VIII being any better than TLJ. Due to shoddy worldbuilding, story construction, and paper-thin new characters, both options A and B were likely no-win scenarios.

    That said, from the bloated runtime to the even worse worldbuilding, Canto Bight nonsense, and other fails, Rian mucked up his own movie in myriad ways that have nothing to do with Abrams and the deficiencies of TFA. Abrams made a straight-up ANH rehash, and Rian made an ironic, too-cool-for-school ESB rehash. Both are crappy rehashes.
     
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  18. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    Boba Fett.

    Yoda/Ben Kenobi were in self-imposed exile as well. Not unheard of for Jedi to go into hiding when things aren't going their way.
     
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  19. EnderAKH

    EnderAKH Commodore Premium Member

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    What the what now? Felicity, Alias, Lost, Fringe, Person of Interest, Revolution, Westworld, and Castle Rock are all shows he produced that had good runs or are likely to.
    Hi, I'd like you to meet my friend Boba Fett who became a cult favorite despite have approximately 10 minutes of screen time across two movies (about 6 in Empire, and around 4 in Jedi) and despite suffering a really dumb death.
     
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  20. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, as others have stated, this is just the Boba Fett effect. There is no obligation for those characters to be anything.
    George Lucas' idea actually.
    This speaks more to expectations than to an actual problem.