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Post by GamerL on Nov 14, 2018 19:04:26 GMT -5
I really have to ask this. Which was better Star Wars Episode 1 or the Star Wars Christmas Special? Really now, there's no question there – Episode I is better, hands down. To do worse than the Christmas Special would take a tremendous effort. (Even Episode II was better.) There's something to be said for Lucas at least having some kind of unique vision for the prequel trilogy, compared to Episodes VII and VIII. One thing that's really fascinating looking back on the Prequels is how Lucas expanded the visual vocabulary Star Wars while still recognizably being "Star Wars" The general "look" of the original movies sci fi design was angular with lots of doodads stuck on, the Prequels by contrast were all about smooth and curvy designs, this is most obvious when you compare the Naboo Starfighter with the X-Wing, the Starfighter is the polar opposite of the X-Wing in every way but they both still seem like they're part of the same universe, which is a clever trick. Then you have stuff like Coruscant, which is still cool. Meanwhile all the new movies have really been doing is putting spins on the classic Star Wars "look" and iconography, which is part of why they feel so bland, it's stuff we've seen before. I mean where is stuff like Pod-Racing? An all new concept of something, all the new movies have given us is space battles, laser battles, lightsaber battles, nothing truly new, just the same old same old and the novelty has worn off fast. Can I just say it's sad how much things have declined since 2012? Think back, Barack Obama easily won reelection which seemed to point towards a Democratic future and Disney bought Star Wars, which was unbelievably exciting news, the future seemed very bright and exciting. Now cut to 6 years later and Trump is President and Disney's Star Wars sucks, where did it all go wrong?
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Post by lurker on Nov 14, 2018 19:20:43 GMT -5
Really now, there's no question there – Episode I is better, hands down. To do worse than the Christmas Special would take a tremendous effort. (Even Episode II was better.) There's something to be said for Lucas at least having some kind of unique vision for the prequel trilogy, compared to Episodes VII and VIII. One thing that's really fascinating looking back on the Prequels is how Lucas expanded the visual vocabulary Star Wars while still recognizably being "Star Wars" The general "look" of the original movies sci fi design was angular with lots of doodads stuck on, the Prequels by contrast were all about smooth and curvy designs, this is most obvious when you compare the Naboo Starfighter with the X-Wing, the Starfighter is the polar opposite of the X-Wing in every way but they both still seem like they're part of the same universe, which is a clever trick. Then you have stuff like Coruscant, which is still cool. Meanwhile all the new movies have really been doing is putting spins on the classic Star Wars "look" and iconography, which is part of why they feel so bland, it's stuff we've seen before. I mean where is stuff like Pod-Racing? An all new concept of something, all the new movies have given us is space battles, laser battles, lightsaber battles, nothing truly new, just the same old same old and the novelty has worn off fast. Can I just say it's sad how much things have declined since 2012? Think back, Barack Obama easily won reelection which seemed to point towards a Democratic future and Disney bought Star Wars, which was unbelievably exciting news, the future seemed very bright and exciting. Now cut to 6 years later and Trump is President and Disney's Star Wars sucks, where did it all go wrong? I thought Finn's stormtrooper perspective was interesting.
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Post by GamerL on Nov 14, 2018 20:16:56 GMT -5
One thing that's really fascinating looking back on the Prequels is how Lucas expanded the visual vocabulary Star Wars while still recognizably being "Star Wars" The general "look" of the original movies sci fi design was angular with lots of doodads stuck on, the Prequels by contrast were all about smooth and curvy designs, this is most obvious when you compare the Naboo Starfighter with the X-Wing, the Starfighter is the polar opposite of the X-Wing in every way but they both still seem like they're part of the same universe, which is a clever trick. Then you have stuff like Coruscant, which is still cool. Meanwhile all the new movies have really been doing is putting spins on the classic Star Wars "look" and iconography, which is part of why they feel so bland, it's stuff we've seen before. I mean where is stuff like Pod-Racing? An all new concept of something, all the new movies have given us is space battles, laser battles, lightsaber battles, nothing truly new, just the same old same old and the novelty has worn off fast. Can I just say it's sad how much things have declined since 2012? Think back, Barack Obama easily won reelection which seemed to point towards a Democratic future and Disney bought Star Wars, which was unbelievably exciting news, the future seemed very bright and exciting. Now cut to 6 years later and Trump is President and Disney's Star Wars sucks, where did it all go wrong? I thought Finn's stormtrooper perspective was interesting. There's a few new things and ideas but it's all pretty constrained from having to at a glance look and feel "Star Wars"
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Post by Sac (a.k.a Icaras) on Nov 17, 2018 3:11:49 GMT -5
Thinking on this, I think a big part of the issue with Star Wars is that, while he did have some help, Lucas did the trilogy and was then done. So despite all the various spin offs and stuff, the trilogy itself was still there and unchanged. (Special editions are something that's been discussed to death, let's not go there) EU might have done some crazy shit, but aside from one game adaption, the EU stayed in the EU.
Then you had the prequels. Now they had lots of stuff we hate and mock, but at least they had a rough idea of the stories they wanted to tell and stuck with it.
There was a few more cartoons and the like, but again for most people they were easy to basically ignore, so those who wanted all the extra crap had games and comics and EU novels, everyone else could just focus on the films.
Now we have the current trilogy and spin offs....and its become obvious there's no real goal being worked towards, it's all just being made up on the fly by each director. Sure this was probably the case for a lot of the story for the originals and prequels, but the new series just makes it obvious from the getgo.
Even worse, the guy making the 2nd film actively delighted in basically trolling the previous films by subverting expectations, even basically saying as much in interviews. Take Luke. I bet most of us expected him to probably be a bit like obi wan, he's take Rey on and train her and be happy to reunite with his family and friends. Instead we got a grumpy old bastard that wanted everyone to leave him alone. Yay? I can think of no reason that would be a good idea and make for a better film. Plus we get crap like Snoke being killed and basically forgotten, or Rey and her family being revealed as nobodies (I swear, you could almost hear the director laughing at the audience while he was doing this.)
I think Disney shouldn't have given so much freedom to each director (why was there a need to change them anyway? Find a good one and lock him in), they should have had a vague outline of the overall trilogy plot and gone from there. No linking the characters together so the universe seems more like a small village. No yearly star wars films, and if they were going to do spin offs, keep AWAY from the main cast (for reasons of recasting characters is shit, and CGIing them up is horrible).
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Post by edmonddantes on Nov 19, 2018 7:59:10 GMT -5
Think back, Barack Obama easily won reelection which seemed to point towards a Democratic future and Disney bought Star Wars, which was unbelievably exciting news, the future seemed very bright and exciting. Now cut to 6 years later and Trump is President and Disney's Star Wars sucks, where did it all go wrong? ... At the risk of making this the third political topic in as many months, I have to point out: If you honestly think the President has fuck-all to do with anything, you have no idea how America works. The President has minimal power by design (after all, our three-branches system was set up specifically to prevent any one ruler from having too much power because the founders still remembered King George). In practical living, congressmen and state senators will have far more direct impact on your life and freedoms than the president does. You should really care more about who your local representatives are, than who your president is. The real world isn't Star Wars. You can't be thrust into a tyranny just because some moron put Jar Jar in office--we actually have systems in place to prevent that kind of thing from happening. ..... Honestly, I think what "went wrong" was... a myriad of things. First of all, the turn of the millennium's film era showed that people were okay with mediocrity and could even be tricked into thinking it was great. Fun fact: it used to be you would be reamed up the ass for criticizing the prequel trilogy (the Spoony One, before he was an internet reviewer, got that exact reaction in one of his reviews for a D&D fanzine... and I have an issue of PC Gamer from the same period which mentions its editor getting a like reaction. Both for Episode I, by the way). This was also the period of the Lord of the Ring film trilogy (which people only turned on after the much-worse Hobbit trilogy happened), and Nolan's Batman which showed that pretentious people would think it was "deep" if you subverted expectations a time or two. <snip long paragraph about the Dark Knight> But that's part of the issue these days. First, nothing can ever be "just fun," it always has to be making a point, usually a politically-derived one. Something that stresses me out, as an amateur writer whose work usually stars women, is how female characters have become a political issue. Like I said on my blog, it leaves me afraid that if any of my work comes out, it'll attract a reaction I'm incapable of understanding meaningfully and might end up being politicized. Of course, the other problem is if you do try to mean something... well, people hate meaning. Just look at the reaction Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty got for daring to try and have a communication about the games medium itself. Then people go and praise the third game basically because they can ignore the story and read it entirely as the macho jollies fantasy they apparently always wanted. Admittedly things have changed a little (for some reason Undertale got received just fine despite doing a lot of what MGS2 did) but still, it shows there is no comfortable center: You're either a political message delivered with all the subtlety of an episode of Care Bears, or you're an art piece. The original Star Wars trilogy would never be made today, nor would games like Super Metroid. Gah. ... Rokay, enough living up to my avatar, time for bed.
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Post by GamerL on Nov 19, 2018 8:37:55 GMT -5
I was just pointing out what a disappointment the 2010s has turned out to be as a decade, from the vantage point of 2012 I never could have guessed what was gonna happen, 2012 in general sticks out in my memory, because it was a very good year for me, I had a lot fun, I took a nice Disney Vacation for my birthday and almost as soon as I got back was when the news of the Disney deal broke, which considering one of the rides I rode was Star Tours was a nice bit of serendipity.
I never would never have been cynical enough, and I can be cynical sometimes, to assume that Disney would fuck it up, I thought this news was great and would lead to some jaw dropping movies.
Then a couple of months later Obama was re-elected, which seemed to point to the irrelevance of the angry Fox News, "Tea Party", "Birthers" type crowd, certainly King Birther himself, Donald Trump, some jackass desperately trying to hold onto fading relevancy as his reality show aged and people were caring less and less, certainly that guy could never be president after Obama, right? No way, not in a million years.
So yeah, things have gotten flat out surreal since 2012, we live in surreal times, sometimes reality doesn't really feel "real" anymore
And I miss 2012, I think back to that year a lot, it's a year that feels like a while ago but also as recently as yesterday, I clearly remember the vibe I felt, I truly believed that we were entering the rest of 2010s with limitless potential, I like to pretend it's still 2012 and think back to the optimistic vibes I was feeling.
And look how it turned out! And it's not over yet! we're about to have one last year of it and this decade will forever be gone, think this decade will go down quietly? Or is it gonna have one last "this can't be happening!" style surprise in store for us? Just imagine all the things 2019 might have instore for us!
The way my imagination works I imagine things like..... like there being no 2020.......
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Post by edmonddantes on Nov 20, 2018 13:57:31 GMT -5
I never would never have been cynical enough, and I can be cynical sometimes, to assume that Disney would fuck it up, I thought this news was great and would lead to some jaw dropping movies. I've always had a little bit more kinship with The Spoony One in regards like these. As he put it: "I remember how excited we all were for the prequel trilogy, and those sucked, so why should I be anticipating this new installment?" (Also like him I felt like I had a history of watching everything I loved get destroyed. Only I had it worse in that people would often love the destroyed versions--Battlestar Galactica being a good example. I never got what was great about the remake, it seemed like just another "lets up the sex and make everyone angry" type show to me--I wound up fully agreeing with Dirk Benedict on the subject--but today its the version most people remember and is said to have made the original obsolete). And of course the example I always mention, Lord of the Rings... That said, honestly I was never a huge fan of Disney. As a kid I liked their movies well enough but I never saw them as the be-all end-all and I don't really associate them with my childhood. Retrospectively there are a dozen other makers of animated films I would consider better, such as the GI Joe and Transformers movies. I never saw Disney as much more than "that company that is ubiquitous and won't die and sometimes makes an okay movie." In short, they existed, but I really didn't associate anything of lasting worth with them except maybe The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse or select Donald Duck shorts (Donald was always my favorite, though I like some Goofy as well. With Mickey, it depends). When I heard Disney had bought out Star Wars I pretty much just... well, by that point Star Wars was already something I only vaguely cared about. Thing is, whenever I hear of an IP being bought out, I tend to see it as "this is when it stops mattering." Two of my pet interests are Shadowrun and Battletech, and yet in both cases I stop caring for any material made after FASA shut down. Partly its a defense mechanism: it gets overwhelming if my potential for caring can extend infinitely forever foreward, but if there's a clear cut-off point, its easy to manage. With video games I'm more changeable about stuff like this, since a cut-off point is built into the medium: hardware requirements. There's partially a reason for that. Reality has changed. I mean, I've met Slenderman, so clearly something is up. Okay, context: I do lucid dreaming, and one of my dreams involved Slenderman being at my bedroom door (this during a period where I was having a lot of nightmares). I was angry and beat the guy up. Then, hours later... you know that kinda-conscious moment you have just before waking up, where you're still dreaming but you're becoming more rational? I had one of those and remembered the Slendy meeting, and actually felt bad about it because he hadn't actually been doing anything so hadn't deserved a beating, and tried to apologize, then I woke up. Still kinda feel bad about that. I mean yeah, that's just a dream, but then, nobody really knows why dreams happen, so for all I know my attempts to control my dream-self may have messed stuff up. Also 2012 was when the Large Hadron Collider was first put into operation, right? Reality might, literally, be changing. nb4 someone mentions the Mandella Effect.
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Post by GamerL on Nov 20, 2018 18:17:54 GMT -5
I never would never have been cynical enough, and I can be cynical sometimes, to assume that Disney would fuck it up, I thought this news was great and would lead to some jaw dropping movies. I mean yeah, that's just a dream, but then, nobody really knows why dreams happen, so for all I know my attempts to control my dream-self may have messed stuff up. Also 2012 was when the Large Hadron Collider was first put into operation, right? Reality might, literally, be changing. nb4 someone mentions the Mandella Effect. Really, 2012 was the year they turned that thing on? And that was the whole year of the Mayan calendar business, which doesn't mean it was about the end of the world but does seem to imply some big change, right? I'm open minded to any crazy thing because something I never would have thought possible has happened, so knows what the hell is going on? What's just really bizarre to me is how much people's attitudes have changed in recent years, we live in times where some people literally have no sense of humor and can't handle a difference of opinion, that's not normal human behavior, we've evolved to be able to go along to get along as social animals, but that seems to be dying. American politics were arguably more fraught in the 2000s than they are now and yet Americans now have such a hateful, nasty, mean spirited attitude about each like never before. Post 2012 was indeed the turning point and I don't understand the direction things have taken at all.
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Post by jorpho on Nov 21, 2018 0:09:43 GMT -5
I mean where is stuff like Pod-Racing? An all new concept of something, all the new movies have given us is space battles, laser battles, lightsaber battles, nothing truly new, just the same old same old and the novelty has worn off fast. The bombers stand out in my mind as kind of cool – but only marginally. I can barely remember anything about the whole chase on the whatsits in the casino. I guess the crystal wolves were kind of neat, but they were just kind of "there". The porgs fared only slightly better. What's just really bizarre to me is how much people's attitudes have changed in recent years, we live in times where some people literally have no sense of humor and can't handle a difference of opinion, that's not normal human behavior, we've evolved to be able to go along to get along as social animals, but that seems to be dying. American politics were arguably more fraught in the 2000s than they are now and yet Americans now have such a hateful, nasty, mean spirited attitude about each like never before. Post 2012 was indeed the turning point and I don't understand the direction things have taken at all. I think in the end all it really comes down to is that you're getting old – and I'm getting old, and a lot of the people you interact with online are getting old. Not sure what the young'uns are up to these days, but it probably ain't no good, oh no. In the end, wasn't Episode I really just a kids' movie? Even watching Episode II, I remember thinking that so much of the film clearly served no purpose beyond selling toys. Audiences have changed, ultimately. I can understand why they'd pull in someone like Rian Johnson or Colin Trevorrow in a desperate attempt to bring in something fresh and challenging, but clearly they went a little too far. Having seen Brick, The Brothers Bloom, and Looper, Episode VIII was very much in line with what I was expecting from Johnson. The confrontation with Snoke reminds me an awful lot of the end of The Brothers Bloom, specifically; the comparison doesn't seem to come up very often.
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Post by GamerL on Nov 21, 2018 8:19:17 GMT -5
I mean where is stuff like Pod-Racing? An all new concept of something, all the new movies have given us is space battles, laser battles, lightsaber battles, nothing truly new, just the same old same old and the novelty has worn off fast. The bombers stand out in my mind as kind of cool – but only marginally. I can barely remember anything about the whole chase on the whatsits in the casino. I guess the crystal wolves were kind of neat, but they were just kind of "there". The porgs fared only slightly better. What's just really bizarre to me is how much people's attitudes have changed in recent years, we live in times where some people literally have no sense of humor and can't handle a difference of opinion, that's not normal human behavior, we've evolved to be able to go along to get along as social animals, but that seems to be dying. American politics were arguably more fraught in the 2000s than they are now and yet Americans now have such a hateful, nasty, mean spirited attitude about each like never before. Post 2012 was indeed the turning point and I don't understand the direction things have taken at all. I think in the end all it really comes down to is that you're getting old – and I'm getting old, and a lot of the people you interact with online are getting old. Not sure what the young'uns are up to these days, but it probably ain't no good, oh no. In the end, wasn't Episode I really just a kids' movie? Even watching Episode II, I remember thinking that so much of the film clearly served no purpose beyond selling toys. Audiences have changed, ultimately. I can understand why they'd pull in someone like Rian Johnson or Colin Trevorrow in a desperate attempt to bring in something fresh and challenging, but clearly they went a little too far. Having seen Brick, The Brothers Bloom, and Looper, Episode VIII was very much in line with what I was expecting from Johnson. The confrontation with Snoke reminds me an awful lot of the end of The Brothers Bloom, specifically; the comparison doesn't seem to come up very often. Bombers still fall under the category of space battles though, chariot style racing was an all new idea totally unlike anything in the original trilogy. And I think age does have a lot to do with it, the Prequels are flawed movies but they only got so much extreme hate because the generation that grew up with the original trilogy wanted something that justified their continued love of Star Wars into adulthood, whereas Lucas was thinking more along the lines of kids and when he tried to add more adult elements (ie Youngling murder) it clashed awkwardly with the tone he already established, but at least the Prequels tried to be something new. Here's what it all comes down to though, Star Wars as a story was finished, the original trilogy told a complete story, the end. What fooled us into wanting more was that Star Wars very cleverly created a very fleshed out "world" for this story to take place in, but that was only ever stuff in the background, the focus was on the story itself. The Prequels were only ever meant to be backstory, not full fledged movies (Darth Vader being Luke's father is obviously meant to be a surprising twist, one that would be spoiled if you watched the movies in "order") and ROTJ was obviously supposed to be the "and they all lived happily ever after" ending. That is why the Sequels have rung so false to people, in order to continue the story they very artificially had to construct drama, even though the Empire was supposed to be defeated they're still around, even though the Rebels were supposed to have won they're still a rebellion, even though the Emperor was killed there's another guy just like him who's showed up from nowhere etc, it's all totally artificial. If Star Wars had to continue it should have been something completely different, my personal idea would be to actually combine Star Wars and Star Trek, ie have it be about exploring unknown parts of the galaxy but it's the Star Wars galaxy, use "Star Wars" as a vague template to just show us crazy, weird sci fi fantasy shit totally unlike what we've seen before, but then that would raise the question of why make it Star Wars in the first place? (and "Wars" implies it can't be just be about exploration or adventuring, there has to be some grand conflict involved) I say stick a fork in it, it's done, we don't need new Star Wars, we need all new thing in the same Joseph Campbell Monomyth mold, like Harry Potter, it's really unfair to rob future generations of their own things they can get invested in and call their own, what Disney is doing is the cultural equivalent of strip mining.
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Post by jorpho on Nov 21, 2018 9:20:39 GMT -5
Yup yup, well put. Here's what it all comes down to though, Star Wars as a story was finished, the original trilogy told a complete story, the end. There's surely some counterexample from anime or manga or comics wherein someone had a "complete story" and extended it successfully. But then, such things tend to have very limited audiences.
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Post by lurker on Nov 21, 2018 10:33:51 GMT -5
While I still need to see Last Jedi in its entirety, I like how they went the deconstruction route with that entry. Back to the series as a whole, George Lucas was apparently going to make another trilogy anyway. Problem is the new trilogy looked to have its own equivalent to the midichlorians. I believe there's still interesting stories you can tell in this particular series. Someone on Twitter brought up an interesting point, that the new Disney batch of Star Wars incorporated more of the EU than Lucas ever did.
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Post by GamerL on Nov 21, 2018 19:26:05 GMT -5
Yup yup, well put. Here's what it all comes down to though, Star Wars as a story was finished, the original trilogy told a complete story, the end. There's surely some counterexample from anime or manga or comics wherein someone had a "complete story" and extended it successfully. But then, such things tend to have very limited audiences. There are exceptions but usually going back to the well just results in an inferior product and only muddies the waters of the cultural memory of the original. While I still need to see Last Jedi in its entirety, I like how they went the deconstruction route with that entry. Back to the series as a whole, George Lucas was apparently going to make another trilogy anyway. Problem is the new trilogy looked to have its own equivalent to the midichlorians. I believe there's still interesting stories you can tell in this particular series. Someone on Twitter brought up an interesting point, that the new Disney batch of Star Wars incorporated more of the EU than Lucas ever did. Lucas toyed with the idea of making a sequel trilogy but never did so, which kinda implies that he never came up with ideas good enough. I certainly would be curious to find out what his ideas were, good or bad I'm sure they would have been interesting. So, in summary
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Post by lurker on Nov 21, 2018 19:35:24 GMT -5
They seem to be going with it being a cyclical thing with the Empire/First Order and Rebel Alliance/Resistance, though they seem be heading for a "breaking the cycle"-type conclusion. That said would be nice if there were more Star Wars equivalents.
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Post by GamerL on Nov 21, 2018 20:10:46 GMT -5
They seem to be going with it being a cyclical thing with the Empire/First Order and Rebel Alliance/Resistance, though they seem be heading for a "breaking the cycle"-type conclusion. That said would be nice if there were more Star Wars equivalents. It's like poetry, it rhymes?
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