36 minutes ago, deltaKshatriya said:

Hard to say how many people actually disliked the movie. IMO my explanation is that you either liked it or hated it, as reflected in the reviews. About 50% liked, and 50% hated. We're seeing the same on this site tbh.

I could go out on a limb and philosophically say that its a sign of our times that everything will gather about 50% disapproval rate nowadays, because of the schism in our culture.

But then that would probably be a half truth. Guess many people expected more from a new SW trilogy, especially after the dumpster fire that was the episodes 1-3. Maybe people expected too much. I kinda admit that I had a bad feeling from the day Disney took hold of the SW franchise. Still disappointing to see them execute what might have been only slightly better than my worst fears with TFA.

So yeah... clearly expectations for SW Movies are skyhigh, and probably you would need both a dream team of writers, directors and actors that would be hard to assemble and pay, and maybe even more money to do the expectations justice. Probably not what Disney aims for with their SW plans. After all, Disney has some pretty skewed views on many things, including their audience and the importance of some mediums (hence the cancellation of Infinity probably). I wouldn't put it beyond Disney that they see the SW mainstream movies mainly as a toy and merchandise sales pitch.

We all know how the hypetrain works... and what happens when the hype inevitably goes unfullfilled by the finished product. And putting out an arguably not that stellar Movie is only going to make that worse.

46 minutes ago, deltaKshatriya said:

I think George Lucas directed the prequels himself, which is partially why they're so bad. That and he basically didn't listen to anyone at that point. The originals had a lot more input from other people. The backstory is sort of interesting, but so poorly executed it may as well be nonexistent. 

And imo the original trilogy was pretty simplistic. There's a bad guy empire and a good guy rebellion. We were never given more story than that. We are given hints of stuff before, hints that there's more that happened, and some idea that there wasn't always an evil oppressive empire. The new trilogy pretty much follows the same methodology with regards to backstory. Probably they're leaving that gap for movies/other means of selling more media (in fact, I believe there are some books that explain that backstory). It's a little lazy, but no more lazy than George Lucas was with his original trilogy. I just don't think that the original trilogy should be put onto some sort of pedestal. They had plenty of failings as well if we want to use that sort of lens to examine them.

Well.... George Lucas has many faults. And directing movies probably ain't one of his strenghts.

I disagree on the backstory being eradicated by the poor execution though. I don't think it warranted 3 movies, 2 of which were painful to watch. But the backstory was good in a way of contextualizing the first 3 movies which were, as you rightly say, simplistic in their general backstory. I really loved the nuance of how the Republic was shown, and how the dark and light side of the force was shown as more than just a simple black and white thing. I found a lot of things still lacking like no real information on HOW or WHY palpatine turned into the incarnation of evil... whereas Darth Vader is a very understandable, and kind of, relatable bad guy thanks to the backstory presented. So, its not all shiny even with all the drivel that bloated the movie up to 3 episodes length removed. But the good in those movies was deep and interesting.

The first trilogy. Well. It was a different time. Looking at the originals and comparing them to modern movies is like looking at a 50's movie and complaining that all the actors are white. Yes, certainly from a modern perspective, its lacking. Certainly its a sign of how people back then, the movie industry, was in a worse place than today, and society had some more issues with a lot of things (or in case of the SW trilogy, a lot of the ins and outs of how to create a big screen space soap opera was not yet figured out correctly).

I would say though, besides that we also have to compare it to its peers from back then. What other soap opera existed there that actually stood the test of time that well?

So if I look back at the original trilogy, I am a little bit more forgiving about some of the issues, BECAUSE it was such a monumental achievement creating these movies in a time where big screen space operas have not been done to death yet, where there was no CGI to fill the movie with distracting explosions, and all the effects to add the BIG SCREEN to space opera had to be done the hard way.

The original backstory was very simplistic, basically drawing a lot of inspiration from WW2 as far as I can tell (yet keeping it vague enough that the empire fits all kind of fascist regimes on the right and left throughout history). The empire WAS ill defined. But as said, the visual language and the stereotypes used communicate all we need to know very efficiently... something TFA arguably pulled of well too, at times. Only this time it was all "Deja vu", when that was my big complaint with the original trilogy blowing up two Death Stars because George couldn't think of another big bad galactic-wide threat to increase tensions.

I give you this though: the new trilogy certainly DOES try to adhere more to the original formula than the episodes 1-3. Which is a good, AND bad thing at the same time, for me personally, and for the trilogy.

Good, because the originals where the high points of SW. Bad, because it is basically a reboot in disguise. It was bound to be compared to the originals because of this... and it never had much chance to stand up to them. The original trilogy had a really dedicated crew behind it. Say about George what you want, but he had some longterm vision.

Now Star Wars is a save bet for big businesses like Disney. And the SW main movies seem to treat it that way.

So if you compare the original movies to those new trilogy, you need to compare it to other movies that came out before it or at the same time. I think SW was ahead of its time in a lot of ways back then, despite all the failings you correctly mention.

The new trilogy is not. Its safe, at best.

Now, trying to get back to story consistency... and here my memory might fail me. I have recently seen a new hope, but the others I haven't seen in years. As far as I an remember, there always has been 2-3 subplots going on at the same time. But thats it. In case of TFA it felt way deeper. Maybe I am wrong on this one.

Location and change of it usually were clearly communicated. Characters either well introduced, or well established stereotypes (which I generally dislike, but if used to shorten the needed time for character introduction, I can get onboard with).

I feel in TFA characters where not well established often. Kylo for example is a kinda confusing mess from a characterization point of view. Rey is... well, we kind of get nothing on her past, or why she is so good at everything, or why she does what she does anyway. Finn I already talked about at length. So much wasted potential. At this point I hope we get a reboot-ish spinoff where we see Finn turn away from the First Order in a full length movie, with real character motivation involved.

Compared to Darth Vader, which was a mysterious dark overlord ON PURPOSE, and was well handled within the confines of staying a dark and mysterious bad guy until the shocking outing of his blood relations to Luke. Luke, who was given quite a lot of character progression from a youngster on a remote desert planet to the Jedi to face off against his father and the emperor. Han Solo, who had just enough backstory to fill out the blanks left by the smuggler stereotype, and turn him into a well rounded character. Many of these characters had less "Room" in the movie to tell their story, but told more of it and more consistently than the new characters in the new trilogy.

To me the biggest mistake of the new trilogy is how badly the bad guys are handled. As a saying goes, a story is only as good as its bad guys. The empire in the original trilogy was... well, kinda incompetent at times. But they combined cool tech with 2 of the most iconic and cool, in a sinister way, bad guy leader in movie history.

in the new trilogy we get a pathetic temper tantrum boy wearing a mask for no real reason with a grandfather complex. And a poor mans emperor, which many people seemed to like, but was killed off in an unsatisfactory fashion in the second movie according to what I read. The henchmen are still incompetent, maybe even more so. So only the cool tech remains.

Yeah, the trilogy definitely needs more Darth Vader....

1 hour ago, deltaKshatriya said:

Well, here's the thing, not only was there never any real consistency in the old films, the canon, which had some consistency/explanations, as I understand it, were pretty much thrown out by Disney. Yea it isn't an excuse, but there's some good points in the other thread about this.

And I think this might be the closest deal to getting to the root of the schism in the SW fanbase we are seeing today: Disney is not respecting the SW canon. Disney wanted the name, but not the universe that came with it. Disney, and by extension, the crew creating the new movies does not care about SW beyond the brand.

1 hour ago, deltaKshatriya said:

Well did Finn kill civilians left and right? As I gather, that was his first mission, and he doesn't seem to be shooting civilians left and right. I'd have to watch TFA again and look closely. Is it lazy? I guess a bit. Take Darth Vader though, we don't learn more about him till the second film. Might be the third here. I can't say that there will certainly be explanations, maybe I'm wrong, and there's just going to be loose ends. Who knows.

Well see, Vader is vague and mysterious on purpose. The whole character is built in a way that you don not need more information to get that he is a bad guy, and a bad ass. There is a character arc that needs the details of his true identity to be not revealed to the audience for dramatic purpose.

There might be a need to shorten Finns introduction for brevity... but that is a pretty lame excuse compared to hiding whose father Darth Vader is to have the maximum effect for one of the most iconic fight scenes of all time.

Finn did embark on a mission as Storm Trooper. He most probably knew that he was expected to kill people. And the way how he freaked out in that battle was called out by people to be rather weird. He freaks out seeing his own friend die. Now, that could still be salvaged. I think you could make a point that he is a newbie, and the indoctrination didn't work that well on him. It probably would still take some more scenes where he questions if he should stay a storm trooper, maybe some superiors being d*cks to him, maybe him getting punished unfairly, maybe more scenes where he gets confronted with the reality of what the First Order really was, to come to the conclusion that he should turn on the First Order. Maybe some more exposure to Poe and more time to develop a bond between the two so Finn chosing to save Poe makes more sense.

Because even if Finn is not that into the First Order... he has been raised, fed, and trained by them. He must have been subjugated to some heavy indoctrination. I don't see other Storm Troopers being treated as prisoners, and most of them seem to be fine with what the First Order does. So obviously, live as a Storm Troopers seems to be not bad enough for most of them to defect, and they seem to believe themselves on the right side of hsitory.

For Finn to shake all that in a matter of minutes, without ANY mental struggle, is quite frankly nonsense.

And lets not get on about he immidiatly starts killing his former comrades like there is no tomorrow after turning. Must have hated the bastards he shared a condo with for years to be so happy to blow them up.

1 hour ago, deltaKshatriya said:

Yea I get the fandom issues here, but I'm just not a fan of enshrining the originals in gospel. I just feel like that TFJ and TFA don't have failings that are significantly worse than that of the original trilogy. Feel free to disagree, but that's just what I feel.

Here I can agree. Yes, I also like seeing new things... which inevitably will cause some canon rules to be expanded (until some fans claim they have been broken).

I just don't feel I got something new really from TFA. More of the same as in the originaly, with a shinier outside and effects, but sloppier story writing and less engaging characters.

I guess a lot of it comes down to personal preference, sure. Still, let me ask you this: wouldn't you be more excited about something completly new, as in "Why the death star was built to such stupid plans", or (hopefully) "How Han Solo built up his smuggling career", or (now I am fantasizing... one can dream) "How a Storm Trooper expieriences the conflict and ultimately defects to the rebels", maybe even "Why palpatine started to dream of building a space empire" than about redoing the same galactic conflict story, from the same angle, with a very similar story concept, just different characters, different names for the empire and rebels, and set in a different time?

1 hour ago, deltaKshatriya said:

So here's where we are just going to have to agree to disagree: I actually liked TFA as is. I liked TFJ as well. I'll probably like the third one, barring something really stupid. I'm not sure I agree entirely with the copy paste criticisms. TFA certainly had a problem with the entire Deathstar 3.0 thing, but beyond that, it was a fairly different movie, at least in my opinion. TFJ is wildly different from the originals. The original trilogy was more planned as I understand it. I don't mind there not being a plan. If they deliver, who cares? 

I'm personally not as invested in the originals as I used to be, so maybe that's why I feel differently. **Shrug**, let's see what happens next. There's no way Disney won't mint money from this series anyways.

Well, and that is fine. I get that just as many people liked, or at least didn't mind TFA, and it seems TLJ is getting the same mixed feedback. To each their own. I guess these people, and you, are simply looking for something different in a Star Wars movie, and in a space opera story in extension.

As to the plan. As a self proclaimed Weeabo that likes anime and manga: when has there ever been a time where a Manga written without a grand overarching story, issue by issue, have been a superior story to one where the creator had an overarching vision? It did work out in some cases. Battle Angel Alita was written issue to issue as far as I can tell... which was a pretty good epic overall. Berserk had some story archs laid out, but clearly not the total (which isn't surprising given the story has been going on for decades).

But even in the good cases, it shows that there is not bigger narrative connecting the issues. Alita was a vastly different story issue to issue. With some being their own "mini series" which kind of ties into the grand story at the end. It worked there because its such a grand "epic" story at the end, and the fact the main character does all thos things kind of shows how Alita lives multiple human lives, so to speak, before she finally confronts the "main boss", Zalem.

As to Berserk, its clear that story should have had a story written for it, and a creator sticking to his own story. It has outstayed its welcome and has sunk deeply into "yeah its alright" territory because the author just couldn't kill it while it still had plenty of live. And I think the biggest problem was that he got tangled up in side stories. Which probably were never planned from the start. good side stories at first. Then less and less engaging ones. And whith each, the universe he created grew. But not always in the right direction.

Now when you have 3 movies, done by 3 different directors, with no pre written stories, don't you think it would be better to make 3 standalone moview rather than to try to tie these together somehow?

Yeah, I am sure Disney is raking in the moolah.... and given Rogue One happened, I hope that means they also keep pushing out those spinoffs, and are giving their directors the license to get more experimental and freeform with the spinoffs. I think plenty of good could come out of that even if I dislike the direction the current main trilogy is taking.

Audience AND Critics score on Rotten Tomatos has come further down...

Critics was to be expected, 93% was stupidly high... its at 90% now, and trends in the direction the exit polls apparently went in (high 80's).

Audience score has sunken to 50%... well, I guess now a lot of people who didn't watched it but were pissed with Disney, disliked TFA or simply thought of the new Star Wars movies as SJW Junk voted on it. Its also Kind of a notable trend, though probably not what an audience score should represent.

Seems some of the loudest critics of the movie liked the movie more after watching it a second time (guess when the shock value of some of the more stupid decisions and scenes where lessened, the rest was less overshadowed by it)... a good friend of mine told me "its entertaining enough... when you can watch it for free ;)". Clearly no masterpiece, but maybe the backlash is just general Hollywood/Disney fatigue?

Maybe I do have to watch it at some point... just to see how much I end up disliking it. Or liking it. Never say never.

9 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:

The other thing I'd note is that there's no way they were going to satisfy all audiences or even a majority. The expanded universe had gone so far at this point for hardcore fans and in general given the wildly varying expectations, there were always going to be people who just weren't going to like the direction.

That is a fair point.

Sadly for movies as huge as the mainstream star wars ones, Disney and the Crew will go out of their way to try and please everyone. Which in turn will result in a worse overall movie. Leave out the cute animals and cut the marketability to kids -> better Movie for many adult fans. Cut out some of the characters to concentrate on fewer, better presented ones, cut diversity of characters and thus who feels represented in the movie -> the chracters left will certainly have more depth and work towards a better, deeper overall story.

At the same time, as you correctly say, it will be always impossible to please everyone. I feel the movie probably wouldn't have reached a bigger audience, but maybe would have rated even higher for the people that did like it if Disney would have had a clearer Focus and less of a "lets fit everything into one Movie" thing going on.

Well, again, probably what the spinoffs might serve. I guess that was the compromise by Disney, if the Han Solo Spinoff is repeating the direction Rogue One seem to have taken. With the Mainstream Movies, and the Spinoffs going into different cirections in this regard.

9 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:

I'm more curious to see how the new trilogy stands up to time. !0-20 years from now, how will people remember these movies?

Maybe its premature to say for me having only watched 1/3, and only read about 1/3...

But I'd say it will be forgotten quickly, just like sadly a lot Hollywood (and the AAA game industry) has produced in the last 5-10 years.

Too much output, with too little heart and soul put it into it. Too much design by commite, or focus group testing. Too much designing for merchandise sales and whatnot.

A lot of the successfull movies simply don't have the artistic value to stand the test of time IMO... just like many that do where not that successfull at release.

Now, coming back to TFA:

1) Bland and flat characters - that might be a little bit divisive, but generally Rey ist just boring, Finn is underdeveloped and has not enough time to shine, and Kylo might have more character... but is just annoying more than anything. The classic characters are... well, nothing new.

I don't see anything as iconic as Darth Vader or the Emperor, or Yoda in the new lineup. And classical characters hardly count, as they have little time in the movies and just get killed there.

2) Story is a rehash, and a convoluted one at that - that might only be true for TFA, even then TLJ seemingly still clings enough close to the existing universe that everything has been done before. Maybe not exactly like that, but it will be the case of "There was that sequel to Bladerunner released somewhen in the mid-'10s.... what was that about again?" ...

Rogue One might stick in memory longer as this has an Elevator pitch that actually explains the whole story in 2 sentences, and clearly is something new(-ish).

3) Old trilogy came out in a time when only a few big blockbusters made it to the cinemas every year... nowadays it seems some cinemas have to rotate even big blockbusters to smaller screens after a week because of some new mega blockbuster coming out.

My guess is the new trilogy will be the mediocre filling sandwiched between the milestone first trilogy and the epic failure that was the second... both of which will probably remain in memory longer because in the first case it was the first trilogy, and actually universally liked when it came out, and in the latter because it was so bad it stands out.

The new trilogy probably is just business as usual popcorn entertainment... good enough to entertain you for an evening, if you can forgive the bad stuff and overlook some of the inconsistencies (which other movies had to, granted), not exceptional enough to really stand out. And with every further movie Disney releases to milk the franchise, that will sadly get worse and worse. More Star Wars movies will not make the existing ones stand out more, nor will it make the general quality better... it just increases the chance of the freak occurence of a really great SW movie despite the effort of Disney to churn out SW movies as an industrial product.

But again, lets see what we get served in 2 years before making a final conclusion.