If we only talked Star Trek on TrekBBS, it would be a much much less exciting place. Much of the fun of talking Trek (50+ years of it) is comparing it to other sci-fi shows (or any genre, doesn't even have to be sci-fi)
Hugo Award Nomination?
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If we only talked Star Trek on TrekBBS, it would be a much much less exciting place. Much of the fun of talking Trek (50+ years of it) is comparing it to other sci-fi shows (or any genre, doesn't even have to be sci-fi)
I liked Rogue One better than both Last Jedi and Return of the Jedi, for what it's worth. I didn't hate LJ the way some do, but I found it too long and too familiar. Beautifully shot, though.
I can get that. There's plot contrivances in TFA that bugged me. However, for me, it's ultimately down to the characters, I liked TFA's much more than R1's.
Rouge One's characters, with the exception of Chirrut Îmwe and K-2SO, were pretty much wallpaper. That said, there was nothing in the story which caused me to suspend disbelief because it was so mind-numingly contrived. I can't say that for TFA. Not to mention Kylo Ren was a whiny emo kid pretending to be a villain, yet he was supposed to be one of the main antagonists.
In general, I feel like Rogue One would have been a much better move (a good one even) if they had cut out say the entire pointless Eadu element (the movie didn't need three high-octane action pieces, IMHO) and used the screen time for more character interaction.
Bull-SHIT.
The problem with the Vader scene is it doesn't belong in the story Rogue One is trying to tell. All our viewpoint characters are dead, and what character arcs there were are either complete or aborted (again, because everyone is dead). And what was ostensibly a story about the horrors of war and of Jyn's change from cynic to true believer suddenly becomes about how badass Vader is as he mows down NPCs. It's a prime example of a cool setpiece trumping good storytelling. (And the fact that so many people think it's the best scene in the movie shows that Disney was right to go that direction, alas.)
Darth Vader is supposedly the most badass Sith there ever was. In six previous movies we barely see him do anything badass at all. Finally we actually see what all the fuss is about, and it’s a bad thing? THIS is who Darth Vader is, I DO want a 3 hour movie about just him, in his prime time. Gimme gimme gimme.
Well, yeah, that's the entire point of Kylo Ren. He's petulant. The film even gets unsubtle about it with Rey revealing his fears of never living up to Vader. I thought it was a clever approach where instead of just rehashing another Vader for the new trilogy we actually have a Vader wannabe and that sets up some of the strongest material in TLJ where he realizes he needs to stop chasing his grandfather's shadow and become his own.
I also like the idea that there is no redemption for him like there was for his father. It's too bad Fisher passed away, because I can imagine a third film where she realizes she needs to kill her own son, that the only way. Oh well.
Isolated by itself, it's a cool scene. In the context of the film, its off-putting. The whole movie is trying to make us root for the rebels and then all of a sudden "YEAAAH CHECK OUT HOW BADASS VADER IS! KILL REBEL SCUM".
Come to think of it, it would be kind of fun to get a movie from the perspective of the empire. Like go STARSHIP TROOPERS that plays up like an Imperial propaganda film.
Can't answer for him/her, but I think Rogue was the best Star Wars since Empire. I hold Empire & Star Wars as the top 2 by a wide margin.
I did not hate Last Jedi, though it had some holes. I kind of put it in the second tier, with Force Awakens & Return.
Drop down to Sith in third tier, Clones & Phantom Menace at the bottom.
Obi-Wan DID give up. Just like Luke. He got back into the game after Luke & R2 showed up & Leia's message. If Luke had done the same after Rey's visit, THAT would have been copy cat. Instead there was a twist. He DOES come back. Only later and in a different way.
But you cannot whine about the derivative nature of the plot & then a breath later whine that Luke was different than Obi-Wan. Can't have it both ways. And it isn't accurate.
If I had to rank them:
1) Empire
2) Star Wars
------------------
3) Rogue One
4) Return of the Jedi
5) Last Jedi
6) Force Awakens
----------------
7) Sith
----------
8) Menace
9) Clones (though I would have to watch the last two again to be sure & I don't want to).
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TLJ & FA have good character development (that I did not always agree with) but some glaring plot holes.
Rogue had a bettet plot, but less on the character side. Though I thought it was OK. The Vadar scene is awesome. Had to connect back to the original. THAT is the point of the scene.
The destroy the Death Star scenes were trite by Return & doubly so in the last two.
Rogue had a bettet plot, but less on the character side. Though I thought it was OK. The Vadar scene is awesome. Had to connect back to the original. THAT is the point of the scene.
The destroy the Death Star scenes were trite by Return & doubly so in the last two.
This scene is fucking fan-wank cranked up to eleven.
Darth Vaders story had been told at this point. Up to the end, and then even again the whole beginning. It's just not interesting at this point anymore, none of the Vader scenes in Rogue One add anything either to the character or the plot of the movie they are in. It also clashes hard with the depiction of Vader in all previous movies.
It's purely a "badass bad-guy mowing down good-guys scene". It's as interesting as watching paint dry without proper context. Like going to Youtube and watching a fan-edit of the battle at the end of "man of Steel" with just the action ond no dialoge. There's just nothing there beyond the most superficial action.
I could have liked this scene if they had, I don't know, as an introduction to a new villain, like Kylo Ren in Force Awakens. It would have established this character as a menace, and made future developments more interesting. As it is - a shove-in to an already finished storyline - it's just an exploitative scene to watch people die without any further consequences or implications. Not to mention that it clashes with the tone of R1 at this point, doesn't add anything to the movie, and involves no character development for anyone in this films. It's just...there. Because someone thought it might look "cool".
I've long accepted that the first two films (STAR WARS and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK) will likely be the only legitimately classic sci-fi/fantasy entries out of that franchise. From RETURN OF THE JEDI and on, the quality will vary from pretty good to pretty terrible. At least with TFA and TLJ I've enjoyed the films more than not.
I would have hoped they signed onto a Star Wars television series rather than a trilogy of films. They've proven to be very excellent at writing teleplays, so I hope they make a smooth transition into screenplays.
I know this thread has moved on, but I was actually a 2017 Worldcon member, so I submitted nominations. "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad" was one of mine, so I was delighted to see enough other fans liked it that it made the final ballot. None of my other nominations for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) did: two episodes of The Expanse ("Home" and "The Monster and the Rocket") and the Doctor Who episode "Extremis." Can't believe that "Twice Upon a Time" made it for Doctor Who instead!
(In long form I nominated Thor: Ragnarok and the entire second season of The Expanse as a unit.)
(In long form I nominated Thor: Ragnarok and the entire second season of The Expanse as a unit.)
Rogue One for me is the best of the Star Wars films since the first three. If there had never been a star wars film, it might well be able to stand up on its own as a standalone film. Imagine that with most of the rest.
Weirdly, I had the same feeling with The Last Jedi I had with Phantom Menace. IN The theater I was dazzled and really enjoyed the visuals. When I got out, I kept thinking what the hell did I just witness? The characterizations were bad, and did not match previous scripts. There were inexcusably stupid things in it, like world war 2 bomber doors, ships that go backwards when they run out of fuel, and a multi-million dollar scene on a gambling world that ate up valuable screen time for no good reason, delivering nothing. For all the bad things that can be said about Phantom Menace, it at least had tighter control on its script.
Rian Johnson directed Ozymandias for Breaking Bad, one of the best hours of television ever filmed. But he didn't write Ozymandias. He did write TLJ. Johnson clearly wants to be an iconoclast, and tear down myths, blah blah blah. Unfortunately for him, that's all Star Wars is. It was a movie about underdog heroes doing heroic things and sometimes eeking out a win. Instead Abrams and Johnson have managed to do this:
The Rebel Alliance/New Republic: all sacrifices, hard work, and victories made meaningless by subsequent attacks of the First Order.
Han Solo: broken down old man who left his wife when things got tough, trading in his iconic good deeds to haul illegal monsters around. Dies from a meaningless patricide.
Luke Skywalker: broken down old man who REALLY likes his milk fresh. Abandoned every principle he held dear, every group he held allegiance to, and every friend who really needed him. This is not the Luke Skywalker you knew, the action figure you saved the day with. He's not even a copy of the Obi-Wan who traded in his knighthood for living in obscurity.. he at least had one final job to do, which he did: to make sure that this pathetic snot of a book-burning holographic warrior grew to adulthood. Hamil deserved better. At least we kind of got to see what The Ganner's last stand would have looked like.
Princess Leia: what happens when a bureaucrat is pushed to the limits but still has no new ideas. We'll never know just how much Fisher was going to have to watch her character was going be fucked up and ruined by SW9. Or maybe we will. They have CGI. I try not to bring up the EU. I really liked the EU. EU Leia had a lot of tragedy but she was so much better of a character (this goes for all of them)
Rey: you can't take away what you don't add to, so she's more or less safe going into the next movie.
Other New Characters we're supposed to care about in this new trilogy: whatever. Glad they're feeding them well, anyway.
At this point you could film two hours of a people crapping in public toilets, slap "STAR WARS" on the title card and it will turn in high revenues and make Disney a lot of money.
Who cares? He was a villain in a black cape and mask. The show wasn't about him back when it was upending the movie industry.
And fuck the eternally boring Sith/Jedi thing. Bring on Solo.
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