Star Wars Megathread

[Tamas]

The only good thing about the sequel trilogy is that it puts a good light on the prequel one. Sure, the prequels were shittily made as well but they were a pairing of incompetence with a genuine care for the setting.

The sequels were clearly made by people who could not care less about Star Wars and Episode 8 was made by someone who quite clearly despised it.

[The Larch]

Just came across The Rise of Skywalker on one of those streaming websites I "subscribe" to.

I gave it another go, as I thought "It couldn't be as bad as I remember after the 1st viewing".

It's so bad, Jesus Christ it's bad. I burst out laughing a couple of times.

The Rise of Skywalker was sentenced the moment the openin crawl brought up Palpatine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx03yPXg4ZQ

Such a terrible creative decision, made even worse by how they don't even give a fuck about explaining it 

And the massive asspull of making Rey to be Palpatine's grand-daughter, just because.

[Solmyr]

Episode 8 was good, if they actually continued to go through with the things it established.

[celedhring]

Episode 8 was good, if they actually continued to go through with the things it established.

I'm of two minds on that film. On one part, it has the most interesting ideas of the whole sequel trilogy (Rey being a nobody, Kylo not being redeemed, 1-chance-in-a-million plans not always come through...). Now, it had a bit of "I'm too smart for this shit" vibe, but it was interesting. But, on the other hand, the film is choke-full of horrible stuff. The entire plotline of the escaping fleet is awful, awful.

But Disney made it worse by rebooting everything for 9.

[Tamas]

Now, it had a bit of "I'm too smart for this shit" vibe

A bit? It reeks of it. "Funny moments" like the iron pressing down as if it was a landing ship are also part of that.

[The Larch]

It's quite flabbergasting how in such a massive franchise they didn't have the entire story completely mapped up from the start, thus subjecting audiences to so much whiplash from film to film, so different were their tones and stories. If they weren't keen on what Rian Johnson wanted to do for The Last Jedi, why did they hire him in the first place? If Abrams was their preferred style, why didn't they give him the whole franchise from the beginning? What happened with Trevorow that he quit the production of Rise of Skywalker? So many questions...

[The Minsky Moment]

Episode 8 was good, if they actually continued to go through with the things it established.

I'm of two minds on that film. On one part, it has the most interesting ideas of the whole sequel trilogy (Rey being a nobody, Kylo not being redeemed, 1-chance-in-a-million plans not always come through...). Now, it had a bit of "I'm too smart for this shit" vibe, but it was interesting. But, on the other hand, the film is choke-full of horrible stuff. The entire plotline of the escaping fleet is awful, awful.

But Disney made it worse by rebooting everything for 9.

I agree with this.
It was on the right track, just bad execution.

[Barrister]

Episode 8 was good, if they actually continued to go through with the things it established.

I'm of two minds on that film. On one part, it has the most interesting ideas of the whole sequel trilogy (Rey being a nobody, Kylo not being redeemed, 1-chance-in-a-million plans not always come through...). Now, it had a bit of "I'm too smart for this shit" vibe, but it was interesting. But, on the other hand, the film is choke-full of horrible stuff. The entire plotline of the escaping fleet is awful, awful.

But Disney made it worse by rebooting everything for 9.

I agree with this.
It was on the right track, just bad execution.

I can't agree it was bad execution, because there were some absolutely beautiful shots and scenes in that movie.

[Habbaku]

JJ Abrams is a hack.

[Tamas]

Episode 8 was good, if they actually continued to go through with the things it established.

I'm of two minds on that film. On one part, it has the most interesting ideas of the whole sequel trilogy (Rey being a nobody, Kylo not being redeemed, 1-chance-in-a-million plans not always come through...). Now, it had a bit of "I'm too smart for this shit" vibe, but it was interesting. But, on the other hand, the film is choke-full of horrible stuff. The entire plotline of the escaping fleet is awful, awful.

But Disney made it worse by rebooting everything for 9.

I agree with this.
It was on the right track, just bad execution.

I can't agree it was bad execution, because there were some absolutely beautiful shots and scenes in that movie.

Like the iron "landing" as a ship? Or the Rebel cruiser ramming the whole Imperial fleet? A turd filmed in a smart angle is still a turd.

[Valmy]

I did think it was impressive that they made a movie that felt it was too smart for the idiocy of the Star Wars universe...and then put lots of idiotic stuff in it. That kind of reflects badly on both the film maker and the franchise.

Though compared to the ninth movie I guess it looks like a work of cinematic...adequacy.

[Syt]

Fun episode, but more heavily action than story focused.

Last episode [spoiler]the Kaminoans said they need to retrieve Omega, this episode Fennec Shand is looking for her - she might be hired by the Kaminoans, but it could be a bait and switch where she's actually hired by someone else. Side note: does she not change up her gear in the 25 or so years between Bad Batch and Mandalorian? I'd question that she's still an active bounty hunter in Mandalorian, but then again Ming-Na Wen pulled off the role in Mando while in her 50s, so she gets a pass.[/spoiler]

I will say I'm very impressed with the production values. The street scenes on Pantora were quite impressive with loads of detail, lighting etc. and the action scenes looked quite incredible. You can tell they're clearly producing for 4K resolutions now. No comparison to early Clone Wars or even later Rebels.

Minor complaint: [spoiler]why does the ladder from a sewer tunnel lead straight to the top of a tower well above street level? That's like in Dark Souls II where you go to the top of a tower, take an elevator further up and end up in a lave cave somehow.[/spoiler]

I liked the Clone Commando doll.

[celedhring]

This was a fun episode. Yes, more action than story but enjoyable nonetheless. Plus droid comedy is always a winner for me in animated Star Wars, and this episode had a little bit of it.

Liked [spoiler]Fennec Shand[/spoiler] in it, I thought they gave her a cool musical cue too. I wonder if we'll ever see some of the [spoiler]CW bounty hunters though[/spoiler].

[Barrister]

Really impressed with today's Bad Batch episode - it looked fantastic.  Visuals do not compare with earlier Clone Wars stuff, or even Rebels.  Story did what it needed to do and was effective.

[Syt]

Enjoying the show so far and agree that the visuals are great. I hear they produce the series for 4K resolutions, explaining the fidelity. I watched a video recently about how Rebels evolved over its runtime. It started with a very low budget, which is why the early seasons look rather basic and take shortcuts to limit the workload, and that only when the show took off they got more resources.

Slightly disappointed that what has been hinted at for several weeks now was relatively quickly resolved within one episode with (seemingly) no lingering consequences.

I do appreciate seeing Bracca again.