Star Wars Megathread

[Barrister]

https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Fortress-English-Subtitled/dp/B004CXGZSW

Amazon has Hidden Fortress.

Greatest horse chase scene EVAH

Cool - I'll have to check it out.

[frunk]

I love that in this day and age it's possible to effortlessly stream so many modern movies.

I hate that in this modern day and age there is no way I can think of to watch The Hidden Fortress, which I have never seen.  In fact I think the only Kurosawa movie I've ever seen was Ran (which was very good, and obviously inspired a scene in TLJ, to come full circle).

Check out the Criterion Channel.  They used to stream on Hulu, now it's a separate service.

[viper37]

https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Fortress-English-Subtitled/dp/B004CXGZSW

Amazon has Hidden Fortress.

Greatest horse chase scene EVAH

that's Amazon US.  Don't know if .CA has it.

[Oexmelin]

Finally saw the Rise of Skywalker.

Such lazy storytelling.

A current problem of blockbusters now is the constant need to lazily overexplain, including overexplain "overwhelming odds". The baddies do not merely have a larger army, they have 10s of thousands of planet destroying ships. And then have a good guy actually say out loud "they have 10s of thousands of planet destroying ships". And then show a planet being destroyed by said ship. And then having a good guy say that a planet has been destroyed by only one of these ships... Ugh.

Favorite use of nostalgia is Kylo Ren threatening a subordinate with the trademarked Harrison Ford's "silencing finger".

[Habbaku]

A current problem of blockbusters now is the constant need to lazily overexplain

You may enjoy: https://youtu.be/0oQtGCtnF2Y

[Berkut]

Finally saw the Rise of Skywalker.

Such lazy storytelling.

A current problem of blockbusters now is the constant need to lazily overexplain, including overexplain "overwhelming odds". The baddies do not merely have a larger army, they have 10s of thousands of planet destroying ships. And then have a good guy actually say out loud "they have 10s of thousands of planet destroying ships". And then show a planet being destroyed by said ship. And then having a good guy say that a planet has been destroyed by only one of these ships... Ugh.

Favorite use of nostalgia is Kylo Ren threatening a subordinate with the trademarked Harrison Ford's "silencing finger".

I actually remmeber thinking "Why not a million of them?" I mean, if you are going to build 25,000 star destroyers armed with a planet killing weapon EACH, why not just make it a million? Or a billion?

[Threviel]

As everyone int he family but me has the flu we started a subscription to HBO. I got my 5 year old boy to start watching one of those star wars cartoons, he seems to like it. It seems somewhat similar in tone to Thunderbirds which he normally watches and enjoys. Since he is into space he got a lot of Star Wars stuff for Christmas, which he didn't care about at all, so this might kindle an interest.

[MadImmortalMan]

Disney put the guy who made the alternate Star Trek junk in charge of this. Who thought it would be good?

[Tamas]

Disney put the guy who made the alternate Star Trek junk in charge of this. Who thought it would be good?

Hard to argue with that.

[Syt]

Sam Witwer (Darth Maul voice actor) breaks down the scene between Maul and Obi-Wan in Rebels (spoilers, obviously):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrkFj6iepMs

Such a nerd.

[Barrister]

So the boys have been on a Star Wars kick after watching Episode 9 in the theatre.  We went back and started watching from Episode 1-onward.  We finished Episode 4 last night.

I wanted to go back to the prequels to see if I had a new appreciation for them - given that my complaint about the new movies is no coherent storyline, and that is indeed the one thing the prequels have going for them.

But no - the writing is still bad.  The dialogue is still awful.  Jar Jar Binks is still terrible and racist.  The 0 year old CGI is showing its age (the practical effects of ANH mostly still hold up though - although the Special Edition insertions are terrible).

There's some satisfaction from seeing the story all pull together, but I think I prefer the newer movies even with their flaws.  The new movies have some just beautifully shot scenes, with nothing to really compare from the prequels.  And Kylo Ren is still perhaps the most compelling character in any of the movies.

[celedhring]

Yeah, a Spanish channel always runs a Star Wars marathon whenever a saga film comes out and I accidentally caught a glimpse of Phantom Menace. Jar Jar is even more annoying than I remembered. Lucas also inserts him and his lame humor even in dramatic scenes, completely throwing off the tone. The newer films are plagued by many issues, but they aren't the catastrophic cinematic failure that are the prequels.

[viper37]

Sam Witwer (Darth Maul voice actor) breaks down the scene between Maul and Obi-Wan in Rebels (spoilers, obviously):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrkFj6iepMs

Such a nerd.

I remember seeing that scene, expecting one epic duel... and in less than 10 seconds, Maul is done!  What a pleasant surprise

[viper37]

Yeah, a Spanish channel always runs a Star Wars marathon whenever a saga film comes out and I accidentally caught a glimpse of Phantom Menace. Jar Jar is even more annoying than I remembered. Lucas also inserts him and his lame humor even in dramatic scenes, completely throwing off the tone. The newer films are plagued by many issues, but they aren't the catastrophic cinematic failure that are the prequels.

Funny.  I was rewatching Episode VIII and thought to myself that 1-2-3 are masterpieces compared to 8 and 9

[Savonarola]

So the boys have been on a Star Wars kick after watching Episode 9 in the theatre.  We went back and started watching from Episode 1-onward.  We finished Episode 4 last night.

I wanted to go back to the prequels to see if I had a new appreciation for them - given that my complaint about the new movies is no coherent storyline, and that is indeed the one thing the prequels have going for them.

But no - the writing is still bad.  The dialogue is still awful.  Jar Jar Binks is still terrible and racist.  The 0 year old CGI is showing its age (the practical effects of ANH mostly still hold up though - although the Special Edition insertions are terrible).

I read an article in the AV Club which pointed out CGI made it possible for George Lucas to put up his vision on the screen: which turned out to be an ugly and over-saturated mess.  The limitations of practical effects forced him to make a better movie.

There's some satisfaction from seeing the story all pull together, but I think I prefer the newer movies even with their flaws.  The new movies have some just beautifully shot scenes, with nothing to really compare from the prequels.  And Kylo Ren is still perhaps the most compelling character in any of the movies.

Kylo Ren was one of the better anti-heroes in recent memory; it's a shame he got stuck in such dumb movies.