General star wars talk/discussion/complaining

[Paul Farquhar]

The duel at the end was one of the best things about it, IMO. It subverted expectations while at the same time being one of the most powerful uses of the force that we'd seen to that point.

Yeah, I really liked it.

 

[Older Beholder]

-

 

[payn]

Imagine choosing Star Wars day to go online and mock someone for a Star Wars preference.

It wasnt SW day.

 

[delericho]

You know what, I'm refusing to allow negativity on May the Fourth. Boo to that. Your task: say something genuinely good about every movie in the franchise. No copouts!

Okay...

Star Wars: An easy one - five year old me used to get up every Saturday morning and watch this film on Betamax, until the tape wore out. Nothing since has ever quite matched the excitement of the trench run.
ESB: Again, easy - the only film in the series to better the first.
RotJ: The highlight is probably the rescue of Han Solo from Jabba, though the triple climax on Endor/the Death Star/in space is really well done, too.

TPM: The best of the prequels for me. The highlight is probably Qui-Gon and Shmi discussing Anakin's origins.
AotC: The weakest of the prequels for me. But it has probably the best scene of the trilogy, in which Dooku explains the entire plot to Obi-Wan only for him to fail to believe him.
RotS: The first and last sequences are excellent, with the final battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin being very much worth the wait.

TFA: By far the best of the sequels. Very much "Star Wars Greatest Hits", but my highlight is the interplay between Finn and Poe.
TLJ: I really liked the death of Snoke, and the resulting battle with his guards.
RoS: Oh dear. It has two really great scenes: the Jedi voices and "There are more of us." And it did the best it could when dealt a really bad hand.

Rogue One: Again, this is great. I like the darker tone, I like that the Jedi are absent, I really like the big action scene at the end, and Vadar kicking ass at the end is really great.
Solo: I thought the recasts worked really well. And, actually, the cast in general is very strong.

Mandalorian and Grogu: looking forward to it!

The Clone Wars: In isolation, this one is hard. But it introduces Ahsoka, and leads into the Clone Wars cartoon series which, after a similarly rough start, gets really good really quickly.

 

[Zardnaar]

Maul Shadow Lord episodes 9 and 10 rated 9.6 and 9.8.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt36594331/

 

[Vael]

You know what, I'm refusing to allow negativity on May the Fourth. Boo to that. Your task: say something genuinely good about every movie in the franchise. No copouts!:

Skywalker Saga:
TPM: Pod Race was well done, Duel of the Fates is the best music piece of the prequel trilogy.
AOTC: The Geonosis battle was a definite fist pump moment seeing all those Jedi in action.
ROTS: This is Ian McDiarmid's movie. Palpatine in action, fun to see.
ANH: Still the best movie of the franchise.
ESB: Still the second best movie of the franchise.
ROTJ: I still love the Battle of Endor.
TFA: As a relaunch of the franchise, this is good. A solid group of new characters and great actors playing them. Might be a touch derivative, but in a good way.
TLJ: Still the third best movie of the franchise. Throne Room battle and the duel between Luke and Kylo Ren are really excellent lightsaber fights.
TROS: For a movie that is so compromised by Carrie Fisher's death and ... events around the movies, the cast do their best to sell it. I still enjoy all these characters.

Non-saga films:
Solo: Cast was brilliant. I think Alden Ehrenreich made a great young Solo, it's a crime we didn't get more of Donald Glover as Lando.
Rogue One: It gave us Andor, a great diverse cast ... love this movie.
Clone Wars: Never seen it, but what I saw of the series that came from it was pretty good.

Now, the directive was every movie in the franchise and there's three more according to Wookiepedia:
The Holiday Special: There's something truly over the top and practically camp about this whole production. Glad it exists as a pointed reminder to some fans that take Star Wars way too seriously.
Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure: I haven't seen this since I was a kid, but I like the Ewoks. Would rather have Yub Yub back over the new celebration music at the end of ROTJ.
Ewoks: The Battle for Endor: I mainly have to give this props for killing off the entire family in the opening. Dark for a kids film.

 

[payn]

The Holiday Special: There's something truly over the top and practically camp about this whole production. Glad it exists as a pointed reminder to some fans that take Star Wars way too seriously.

This is a fun artifact of its time. Sci-fi was pretty weird and didnt get the best writers or execution, particularly on television. Which is a big reason I think SW is so impactful. The blockbuster modern film era was just getting going, but SW was the first time sci-fi busted out of special interest and into the general audience. The holiday special is a reminder of a time when the differences in film and television were stark, and sci-fi was leaned into the weird.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The trouble, of course, is that the older audience is endlessly declining. A decline that can only accelerate. To sustain a franchise it needs to constantly bring in new fans. And, especially with something like Star Wars, you need to grab them whilst they are young. For all its faults, the Phantom Menace recognised that. The stinkyness of of Rise of Skywalker in particular lost a generation of potential fans. This movie looks like it’s intended to appeal to a younger audience, but it has to get them into the cinema in the first place. It’s basically in a worse position than the original film, which at least had novelty to get people to the cinema to get word of mouth started. Its only hope is to be very very good.

However, demographics say that the larger part of the population is actually older people. They might not be able to bet on them, because they might simply not be interested in Star Wars anymore, or not interested in new Star Wars stuff. But they won't get a huge audience with younger generations either, because they are smaller and also the market there is a lot more fractured due to all the other "genre" material available. Marvel and DC movies, a naughty word-ton of animated movies and series. The sequels don't seem to help...

And I am still not satisfied with the prequels. But I can acknowledge that the basic plot ideas with Palpatin/Sidious playing both sides to install himself as Emperor while manipulating a young, eagier Jedi to the Dark Side is pretty solid, where as the sequels don't offer anything anywhere as compelling like that, especially since it's too close narratively to the original trilogy.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

However, demographics say that the larger part of the population is actually older people

Misleading statistics. Older people are far less likely to go to the cinema. People simply age out of the market for going out. If you look at all the recent commercially successful movies they have all targeted young audiences, especially pre-teens.

 

[MarkB]

Misleading statistics. Older people are far less likely to go to the cinema. People simply age out of the market for going out. If you look at all the recent commercially successful movies they have all targeted young audiences, especially pre-teens.

Some of that is pre-teens usually being accompanied by parents, so you get twice the demographic for your buck, but that's still a valid factor.