On 8.1.2018 at 12:31 AM, mikeman said:

IIRC, it was Finn's very first combat mission. In the heat of the battle, he just couldn't bring himself to kill innocent people, and that exposed him to both Kylo Ren and Phasma that immediately knew something was "off" with him. I seem to recall that after the mission Phasma was ordered to bring him for reevalution or "reconditioning" or something like that. He realized he was walking on very thin ice from then on, and grabbed the opportunity to escape with Poe. Logically, we must assume he already was a good person and had a mental conflict before the movie's events start. But it's not something he was planning for a long time - he went into his first combat, he fucked up before his superiors(one of whom is a mind-reader), he realized that after that he was screwed, so he jumped on the chance to escape with Poe.

That might very well be... but see, IMO incomplete character arcs like that asking the viewer to assume what was going on before the movie started are an example of weak story writing. I am certain there would be ways to make that work, but from what I have seen in TFA, there was no room for any of this.

You were asked as a viewer to simply assume a) that Finn was a good person from the start and the indoctrination had little to no effect on him, b) he hated all the guys that he was surrounded with enough to not care a bit that they could have been killed during his escape, even though he clearly has shown to have cared for at least one of the other storm troopers, c) That he would instantly trust Poe more than everyone else even though he only met him, has been exposed to indoctrination besically training him not to trust rebels or dissidents, and just having gone through a most probably quite tough inner decision making process that probably made him question himself, and everyone around him.

I am sorry, but the whole story reeks of a story writer who is so indoctrinated... or to put it less extrem, fixated on a an extreme of the spectrum (call it political, or whatever you want) that he or she can only see black and white instead of shades of grey. Thus there are only people who see the evil of the other side (the first order in this case), and people who ARE on the other side. Finn not immidiatly trusting Poe would have meant he is still a first order goon. Finn not wanting to immidiatly kill his own former comrades would mean he is still not one of the good guys.

That is reading too much into it, most probably. Most probably the story writer just had not enough space for nuance, and with Star Wars ALWAYS having been a black-and-white good vs evil story with little space for grey (which is why Lando Calrissian is one of my favorite characters, working with the empire at times to save his own hide and the ones of his people, while helping the rebels at other times... kind of the most "Grey area" character we got in Star Wars till now IMO), probably too much nuance would have pissed off a lot of fans who wanted a simple black and white story served with the new star wars movies.

Still, as someone who loves nuanced characters, Finn is one huge walking missed opportunity to me, and at the same time I still think his story doesn't work as presented by the movie. If I have to assume more than I can see in the movie, something has gone wrong. If its bad writing, too much story compressed in too little run time of the movie, or some political lens of the story writer, IDK.... but ultimately that is not that important to me. I would have liked Finn to have his story presented, with all the nuance to make it believable. It would have been much, much more interesting to see than the classical heros being camoed in, or that Mary Sue Rey having her heros Non-journey.

On 8.1.2018 at 12:19 AM, mikeman said:

With the risk of sounding a bit petty, the extreme version of that is a portion of hardcore fans(that must be close or even over 40 at this time) that expected the new trilogy to emotionally sustain them for the next 30 years, like the old one did - this of course won't happen, and they're very, very pissed off.

See, I have probably a little bit different lens than many of the old fans being pissed.

I wanted to see a story that deviated MORE from the originals. As entertaining as the originals where... we have seen the death star being blown up 2 times already, and we got all the black clad evil Sith lord action we could ask for (cool as Vader is)...

TFA is the same same, but not so different. Just worse than the originals.

Thinking about it, that is probably why I am one of the few people who ranks the episodes 1-3 higher than TFA. Bad as the actual movies 1-2 where, the story was kinda new. It was something different. While TFA has just retread what we have seen before, and with TLJ still being about "rebels" fighting an "evil empire", with some of the same tropes like a young Jedi padawan (if we can call a Mary Sue a padawan) being trained by an old master for example.

I for myself wanted to see Star Wars being taken into a radical new direction. Or the old formula being subverted enough to actually make me watch again.

What would have saved TFA for me would be for Rey to fall to the dark side, and the crybaby Kylo questioning his ways after killing his father. If that would have been set up correctly and brought as an unexpected turn of event, yet believable, I might have seen TFA in a different light. Much like the insufferable brat that Anakin was kinda made sense after seeing HOW Plapatine turned him to the dark side (even though I still don't think we as viewers had to suffer through so many hours of Anakin being a total ***).

Rey being a bland Mary Sue in TFA would have been the perfect setup for her fall to the dark side.... at which point she might have become an actual consistent character given how psycho she seemed in TFA with her mood swings and sometimes robot like know-it-all reactions. Kylo... well. I really hope hes less insufferable in TLJ anyway.

Now, that is just one idea I could come up with how to salvage the trilogy for me. Sadly none of it really seemed to have come to pass with TLJ, seemingly tucking away linearly in the direction of an underwhelming third movie. What I have heard until now doesn't seem to break the mold or bring anything spectacularly new to the table.

Maybe this trilogy just isn't for me... I am more hopeful for the Spinoffs.

As for emotionally sustain someone... I don't even know what you mean.

But trying to give my 2 cents to it: the original trilogy was a landmark. A new thing. Something the revolutionized movie making and sci-fi/fantasy flicks forever. A new trilogy either is the same, or is a dissapointment for many. Which I feel is why the episodes 1-3 failed (being something new, yet not being epochal enough), and why this new trilogy will fail for many fans (being something remeniscent of the originals, yet not being epochal enough).

A new star wars trilogy trying to be a big epic will probably never again be as universally liked as the originals. Its the big problems with sequels to epochal first entries I guess.

18 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:

@Gian-Reto: I'd highly recommend checking out Rogue One before passing judgement on all the films. In my opinion, that is still the best movie of all the new ones released. I'd be curious to hear your take.

Well, German version not out until April.... seems I have to get my hand on an international version. Lucky these are also available in switzerland.

Pissed a little bit that the 3D Version still costs 35 bucks when the normal Blueray is a nice 17 bucks. WTF? Haven't the movie companies learned that 3D actually is only interesting for a small niche of people BECAUSE they grossly overpriced the 3D Bluerays for years?

As one of the few people in the world who actually enjoys the 3D function of his TV, I am pondering now if I should wait for the 24 bucks German version 3D Blueray to come out, or if I should just get the 17 bucks english non-3D version now.

Is the 3D in Rogue One worth spending extra, or waiting another 3 months on?

As to writing off the movies... I think I rather will judge the Spinoffs on their own merits. I think the mainstream series is lost, and probably future mainstream series are highly dubious if a new trilogy ever comes out. To many interests pulling in too many different directions, all the while Disney and the directors trying to make the movies ever more epic when we already have surpassed Micheal Bay levels of silly when it comes to spectacel.

Probably new mainstream movies will retread the old without actually trying to be more than just popcorn movies. Reminds me of the reactions to No Mans Sky: "wide as an ocean, as deep as a puddle".... that sums up how I perceived TFA.

The Spinoffs probably are more for the old fans that have seen enough spectacel to buy into the universe, and are now looking for a deep story set in that universe. I am not yet commiting wholly to that until I have watched Rogue One, but the mere fact Disney tries to serve these two different types of SW movies might make me forgive the mess that was TFA.

9 minutes ago, mikeman said:

@Gian-Reto:  Well, the way I see it is...in the new trilogy, they wanted to have a story arc about a storm trooper that defects and joins the Rebellion. Which, in itself, is a pretty interesting thing. I'll agree that, since all we have ever seen of storm troopers are them being faceless brainwashed goons, suddenly having one of them remove his helmet and almost instantly emerge as a full-blown human being with a heart of gold and a desire to join the Resistance seems out of the blue. But this is a 2-hour movie - how much time can you spend on this?

But It's true it could have been handled significantly better - Like, you said, Finn still escapes out of necessity, but initially distrusts Poe&Rey and the whole Resistance thing, wrestles with guilt over his "traitor" status, just wants to run away and be safe(something that does happen in TFA) - generally probably an arc that would end with him only very slowly warming up to the Resistance and formally joining it at the end of TLJ. But, like I said, it's Star Wars - when has the writing of those movies ever been anything more than "good heroes fight evil space nazis"?

Well, I feel like Finn, as a character, is wasted on the main trilogy. This could be said of many other characters featured in the main trilogies... what would Rey's story look like would she had 2 hours to herself, without all the shoehorned in cameos, and the writer having to move her quickly from nobody to protagonist?

Finn probably should have gotten his "A Star Wars Story" spinoff way before appearing in the main trilogy. This way, they could have saved his 20 minute introduction arc which was so compressed that it was just crap, all the while getting a believable characters into the movie that is a former storm trooper.

I feel that this is one of my main gripes with the new trilogy, besides not getting enough new. Too many characters thrown at me I don't care about enough.

I might feel very differently if there had been a movie introducing Finn, one introducing Rey and one giving a Backstory to Kylo before TFA, like the way Marvel usually introduces Heros in their own movies before adding them to the Avengers Rooster (with one of the exceptions being Black Panther, which in my case as someone who isn't that familiar with the comics let to quite a WTF? moment in that movie). I think the Marvel movies have shown quite well how to built a large movie universe that the SW section of Disney could take some hints from. Maybe they will, moving forward.

I agree that in the end, the original trilogy was also quite black and white. Still, it gave characters more room to develop.

Luke had a lot of struggle and learning to do that Reys story simply skips for more action and martial arts stunts.

Vader was dark and misterious, but with hints of grey areas in his past when you hear that he is the father of luke, and some decisions that make him seem more human. Kylo in contrast has none of this in TFA. Maybe TLJ adds more nuance here. Again, this means that a character needs to get more room to show nuance while still be evil enough in other parts to work as a villain in such a black and white story.

Han Solo, or Lando Calrissian are clearly set up as neither good or bad in the beginning, yet deciding for the light side in the end. Which again, needs some room to be set up correctly. Han Solo needs to be won over to help the rebels. Calrissian needs to think his options through before risking his people lives for the rebels. That all takes up some screen time.

Its small things that make those vintage characters much more believable and threedimensional to me. But that is kind of the genius of the old movies, getting out way more mileage out of not much more time for the character arcs besides all the action.

Maybe BECAUSE the action was still more limited in what was possible at the time, the old movies ofte opted for more time to show off characters, whereas the new trilogy packs in more action? Maybe the characters actually HAD more time on screen for dialogue and characterization?

After all, how would the iconic fight between Darth Vader and his son look in current year? Probably way more time wasted with martial arts moves, exploring camera angles and whatnot. Probably cutting out all that made that scene work so well. Which wasn't brilliant fight choreography at all (to me as someone who is interested in sword fighting, and actually fought with historical swords before, its just one level above the "waving swords in the air by hundreds of actors looks like actual fighting on screen" trope from the olrd 50's historical flicks)... nor was it the physical fight at all.

It was the dialogue, and the overall feel best captured by the wide angle shots who made the two combatants look very small on a spectacular stage.

Would that still be used by a current hollywood director in a run-off-the-mill action flick in current year? Or would they be too busy getting the most spectacular fight choreographed?

On 9.1.2018 at 4:46 PM, deltaKshatriya said:

The 3D version of Rogue One exists? I didn't know. It's probably not worth waiting for anyways. I've always thought 3d is pretty useless tbh. But hey *shrug* to each his/her own here.

Well, I got one of the few TV sets which seems to have gotten the 3D Expierience almost right. Right at the end of 3D TVs, when almost noone cared anymore, some TVs actually came out which have little crosstalk and make 3D look REALLY good with a good 3D Blueray.

If you like having to wear the active glasses while watching, still having to overlook some faint traces of crosstalk, and the slight dimming effect of the image thanks to the glasses.  And if you are ready to pay almost double for a 3D Blueray in the first place. Which is really annoying even for the movies which got 3D right.

So the question I wanted to ask is rather this: are the 3D effects in Rogue One an integral part to the expierience like in Avatar (probably not), really well executed like in most Marvel movies (you know, enhancing visuals, looking really 3D), or are they just feeling tacked on (like in some movies not shot in 3D)?

On 9.1.2018 at 4:46 PM, deltaKshatriya said:

Absolutely agree with this here. A lot of the criticisms are 'x needs to be explained or y needs to be explained' and while I do agree with that, there's only like 2ish hours in a movie, as is the new one is pretty damned long.

I guess the question is one of focus... an area I feel TFA was very weak in, as it tried to be everything to everyone, introduce too many characters in its run time, feature too many cameos, and showed to many scenes for its own good.

Which is, to a small extent, a throwback to the originals.... but still, I feel TFA tried to one-up a new hope and the others here, and kind of went overboard. Something I hear is not much better in TLJ in regards to stacking subplots, even though I am sure the already established new characters (as good or bad as they were established by TFA) and the longer run time sure might help.

When I get a character thrown in my face with little to no explanation, introduction or characterization, I can of course just willfully suspend my disbelief and just overlook the gap. Fill it with my own explanations, try to look them up in the books, or simply try to enjoy the movie without it.

But to me, at least, it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb and lowers the enjoyment for me. At that point I feel like I would have preferred less... less characters, less spectacel, less ambition... but better structured and introduced so I wouldn't have to go the extra mile afterwards for the additional information, or simply switch to "its just a popcorn movie so chill" mode and overlook it.

As it stands I cannot shake the feeling that the crew wanted too much, and was unable to execute it in the time they had in TFA. Maybe they felt they would bore the audience with more indepth characterization, IDK...