# What are Your Thoughts on Disney's Ownership of the  Marvel And Star Wars Franchises ?



## BAYLOR (Jul 18, 2022)

What do you think Disney has done well and not so well with both?


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## Rodders (Jul 18, 2022)

Rant mode unlocked, Baylor. 

If Disney hadn’t bought Marvel I suspect it would’ve gone under. I really enjoyed the movies I’ve seen because they’re very enjoyable and competent movies and as a franchise, I think they have a clear plan. Tying in over 20 movies was an incredible achievement. Well done.

I was let down by Disney's handling of Star Wars, but I remain both faithful and hopeful. To be fair, i think they’ve tried to be hands off and I think a lot of the blame for Star Wars lays with the head of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy.

The sequel movies were not good movies. Lazy, cliched writing that meander without a credible plot or back story. Strong OT heroes were pretty stupidly killed off. (I appreciate that Disney would want to lose the old heroes to make way for new ones, but come on.) Characters like Finn, Poe and Rose were completely wasted and Disney didn't seem to know what to do with them. Allowing the directors to write there own stories without an overarching series plot was negligent

That said, they have done a lot of things well. Jedi: Fallen Order was a great game. Rogue One was the better of all of the Star Wars movies. The Mandalorian is also very good too, although I have only seen the first series. Ironically enough, I think the Sequel Trilogy made the Prequel Trilogy better films. They bought the franchise to draw in young teenage boys, but their use of OT characters on their TV shows suggests they're trying to mollify those that grew up with the original trilogy.

I really hated what they tried to do to Alan Dean Foster. It was unethical to say the least.

I think Disney thought they could do anything with Star Wars and it’d remain a cash how for them.  Well... no.


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## Le Panda du Mal (Jul 18, 2022)

The recent examples I've seen from both franchises are entertaining in parts but mostly feel like the soulless product of committee-writing with the guiding principle being "market research suggests this character/ plot point will score well with audiences." 

Overall I think it is a very bad thing that "popular" culture is increasingly centralized in the hands of a few corporations. I put "popular" in scare quotes because it is popular only in a crude numerical sense, that is, the number of people that passively consume it. It is deeply unpopular in terms of ownership, participation, and control.


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## paranoid marvin (Jul 18, 2022)

Almost every Marvel movie I've seen I've enjoyed. The get the right blend of action, comedy and storytelling. And as Rodders says, to get so many into one overarcing story that (largely) makes sense is a great achievement. Such a divergent blend of genres and types of movie - I think 

You only have to look at the attempted DC universe to see how easily it could have gone wrong. Superman vs Batman in the Marvel universe would have been an entirely different beast.

As for Star Wars - well Rogue One is the best SW movie since ROTJ, and there are times when I consider it to be the best SW of them all. Yes, the sequel movies aren't always fantastic, but when you compare them to the prequels they are masterpieces.


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## Swank (Jul 18, 2022)

The edgiest thing Disney ever did was Tron.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 18, 2022)

Swank said:


> The edgiest thing Disney ever did was Tron.



I loved both Tron films . I wish they'd do a third film.


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## Swank (Jul 19, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> I loved both Tron films . I wish they'd do a third film.


I don't know what they were thinking doing the sequel like they did.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 19, 2022)

Swank said:


> I don't know what they were thinking doing the sequel like they did.



I liked that sequel .


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 19, 2022)

Swank said:


> The edgiest thing Disney ever did was Tron.



Oh,  killing off the princess in_ Dragonslayer _wasn't by the book and bits of _Return to Oz_ were downright creepy.


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## Swank (Jul 19, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> Oh,  killing off the princess in_ Dragonslayer _wasn't by the book and bits of _Return to Oz_ were downright creepy.


I never realized Disney had anything to do with DS. ILM did the effects. It's my favorite classic fantasy movie.

However, that the two edgiest Disney films were 40 years ago just makes my point.


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## Harpo (Jul 24, 2022)

Marvel have just announced the title of this current series, (which includes all their Disney+ series, of which five more are coming next year) culminating in two Avengers films in 2025.

After this, they will probably (in my opinion) succumb to the law of diminishing returns et cetera


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## Bick (Jul 24, 2022)

I’m not a die hard comic fan, so haven’t much cared what they did to Marvel. The films seem okay, for what they are.
They’ve broken Star Wars, and I can never forgive that.


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## KGeo777 (Jul 24, 2022)

What has Disney done well...
that's tough to answer--I suppose not doing a sequel to the Star Wars Holiday special...thus far.

I don't blame them completely for the lame trajectory they took Star Wars in because  Lucas was going down that path himself. People who can't see that in the original films and prequels need to pay closer attention. All the sign posts are there. Plus, I think Star Wars was never something that could really endure--it was a SPFX showcase with a Flash Gordon coating. It was never intended as something coherent in story. It's very inconsistent. When Luke gets to Dagobah his personality completely changes.

I suppose I can throw them a bone for the ambitious attempt to make a series of Marvel films in short order but I think it's mostly a big failure because they were more inclined towards comedy and mediocre melodrama than adventure. And sorry it is to say, when Sleeping Beauty was made, the scene where Maleficent shows the prince that she plans to keep him a prisoner for decades and release him when he is really old,  that was supposed to be an *evil* plan-to Walt Disney and the audience. Who could have guessed that decades later, Disney management would see Maleficent's plan and go: "that's a great idea!"

I think Marvel could have sustained a good series of adventure films if they weren't so non-traditional about the approach. They cranked up the politics with each new film.

As for Dragonslayer, it was a mixed bag for me. I liked the foreshadowing of the dragon by using effigies and stone carvings--before you see the real thing--and there's something melancholy about it--you feel sorry for the dragon--the one very effective shot of the dragon finding the dead babies and the head rising up into view--that was a little puppet they used, and  with the music--that was an effective spfx sequence.
But, it is a subversive story because the king is corrupt and his daughter gets her foot chewed off and some say that was done as a mocking rebuke to the Disney princess concept.  It's counterculture and I don't think it ages that well. It was criticized at the time as a Star Wars clone--and if they mean that the Peter McNicol character is rather feeble then yes--because in the end it is the wizard who has to take on the dragon.
 It's a Disney-Paramount production so Michael Eisner was an executive at Paramount around that time--he was eyeing the prize, like Sauron thinking about the ring. Had to be patient a little longer.

"My precious."


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## Swank (Jul 24, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> It was criticized at the time as a Star Wars clone--and if they mean that the Peter McNicol character is rather feeble then yes--because in the end it is the wizard who has to take on the dragon.


The wizard became the Holy Handgrenade, but I don't think that takes away from all the heavy lifting McNicol did to get him there.


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## KGeo777 (Jul 24, 2022)

Swank said:


> The wizard became the Holy Handgrenade, but I don't think that takes away from all the heavy lifting McNicol did to get him there.


But he's playing a Luke clone--he's the reluctant unlikely hero. And the girl is more masculine than him actually.
It's similar to Jaws in some ways---the corruption of the town, the police chief is also a reluctant hero--I guess we could say the  wizard is the oxygen tank stuck in the mouth.


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## Rodders (Jul 24, 2022)

With Star Wars, Disney have obviously taken it for granted and i think that's why they are trying to win older fans back with TV shows on characters we already love. I think this is a bad idea as it demystifies the character and makes the Star Wars galaxy a small place.

I think there is enough space for new, original stories that are darker and more adult in tone. The Star Wars galaxy is not a nice place, so there should be plenty of material and story ideas.

I noticed the other day that Games Workshop now have a line of Warhammer Crime and Warhammer Horror books. I think this is quite exciting and wouldn't mind this for the Star Wars galaxy.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 24, 2022)

Swank said:


> The wizard became the Holy Handgrenade, but I don't think that takes away from all the heavy lifting McNicol did to get him there.



*Dragonslayer  *is one of  the best fantasy films of all time .


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## paranoid marvin (Jul 24, 2022)

Swank said:


> I never realized Disney had anything to do with DS. ILM did the effects. It's my favorite classic fantasy movie.
> 
> However, that the two edgiest Disney films were 40 years ago just makes my point.




Wouldn't you say that Rogue One was pretty edgy (well, at least as edgy as a SW movie could be)?

It's also a movie that is basically a backstory to a 40+ year old movie, so it doesn't have a 'proper' ending. If ever there was a 'for the fans' movie, then this was it. And Darth has never been more portrayed more spectacularly than he was at the end of the film.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 24, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> Wouldn't you say that Rogue One was pretty edgy (well, at least as edgy as a SW movie could be)?
> 
> It's also a movie that is basically a backstory to a 40+ year old movie, so it doesn't have a 'proper' ending. If ever there was a 'for the fans' movie, then this was it. And Darth has never been more portrayed more spectacularly than he was at the end of the film.



I found* Rogue One* to be surprisingly good .


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## paranoid marvin (Jul 24, 2022)

Bick said:


> I’m not a die hard comic fan, so haven’t much cared what they did to Marvel. The films seem okay, for what they are.
> They’ve broken Star Wars, and I can never forgive that.




For me, George Lucas broke SW with Phantom Menace. I still remember going to the cinema with such excitement and trepidation; and when I came out afterwards it took some time to register what I had just seen. How could the same man who had directed ESB have created this movie?

I felt exactly the same about the story he created for Crystal Skull. How could the same bloke who wrote the story for Last Crusade have written this?

Rogue One was the movie that I hoped I was going to watch back in 1999. I'm pretty convinced that Lucas has lost the magic that could have created a film like that now. The sequel films are not as good as the original trilogy or Rogue One. But they are hampered by having to cast characters that we know and love, in a world without Darth Vader (who was the most compelling character of the original trilogy) and with actors who simply aren't as youthful (And perhaps not as charismatic) as they once were. They have faults, but if we _have _to have them, then they were acceptable.

The whole branching out of the tv series is definitely weakening the core of the original trilogy, and it certainly doesn't fee as special as it once was. But we just have to accept that, and for a new generation of viewers who have immediate access to everything instantly (we had to put up with waiting for ESB on Christmas day) then an ever expanding universe of characters is what they want and expect.

For me, the prequels don't exist, and I'll never watch them again. I'll stick to the original trilogy + Rogue One. But I will check out some of the new movies and tv shows at some point.


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## paranoid marvin (Jul 24, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> I found* Rogue One* to be surprisingly good .




Apart from the first 5 minutes of confusingly planet hopping, and the dodgy CGI of Leia (surely this could have been updated quite easily and cheaply now with newer technology?) the movie is as perfect as it could be. In fact second only to ESB. And yes, after the disappointment of the prequels, I too had very low expectations when I saw it at the cinema - which is perhaps why I found it so good. It's one of the very, very rare films that I have watched twice within a short period of time.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 24, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> Apart from the first 5 minutes of confusingly planet hopping, and the dodgy CGI of Leia (surely this could have been updated quite easily and cheaply now with newer technology?) the movie is as perfect as it could be. In fact second only to ESB. And yes, after the disappointment of the prequels, I too had very low expectations when I saw it at the cinema - which is perhaps why I found it so good. It's one of the very, very rare films that I have watched twice within a short period of time.



It's by far , the best Disney Star Wars movie. 

I did like the Moff Tarkin scene .


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## BAYLOR (Jul 24, 2022)

I lost confidence in George Lucas after the Prequel films.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 24, 2022)

Am I the only person on the planet who _doesn't_ like _Star Wars_? 

I'll qualify that - I used to like it. I was blown away by the original when I was a kid.  (Saw it in the cinema on its first run aged 16 or so.)  Like nothing I had ever seen before - big WOW! factor.   Nowadays, I can see past the special effects, and stripped of any nostalgia value, I've come to realise it's not _really_ that good a film.  In fact I fell asleep the last time I watched it.  

His best film was _American Graffiti_ which actually does get better on repeated viewings.


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## Swank (Jul 24, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> But he's playing a Luke clone--he's the reluctant unlikely hero.


When is Luke ever reluctant? Luke is Martin Blank, trying to get off Tatooine so he can go kill people. People like to say that Luke is a Campbellian hero when he's really a subversion of that trope - brave and skilled robotics tech who can't wait to go into combat.



paranoid marvin said:


> Wouldn't you say that Rogue One was pretty edgy (well, at least as edgy as a SW movie could be)?
> 
> It's also a movie that is basically a backstory to a 40+ year old movie, so it doesn't have a 'proper' ending. If ever there was a 'for the fans' movie, then this was it. And Darth has never been more portrayed more spectacularly than he was at the end of the film.


No, I would not say it is edgy in any way. It is ham-fisted retcon of Star Wars back story, full of un-SW sentimentality and mostly serves as an Easter Egg hunt - right down to having two incredibly 'uncanny valley' zombie guest appearances. It is not supposed to be about Jedi, yet has Jedi replacement characters. And the design of the props and ships violate the aesthetics established in the other films.

It isn't a bad film on its own. I like Erso (despite the silly backstory) and the droid - but it is a SW movie squeezed through a post-2000 filmmaking filter. The fact that the protagonists die isn't edgy - its what we were told on Yavin 45 years ago. It is a story much more like Edge of Tomorrow or Hunger Games.


JunkMonkey said:


> I've come to realise it's not _really_ that good a film.


I don't think there has ever been a film(s) that is so immersive - there is almost nothing in SW or ESB to remind the viewer of real life and real people.


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## Swank (Jul 24, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> I felt exactly the same about the story he created for Crystal Skull. How could the same bloke who wrote the story for Last Crusade have written this?


How could the man who felt the need to provide backstory explanations for absolutely every Indy characteristic (whip, hat, jacket, snakes, chin scar, name, etc) write something as silly as CS? Seems like the same bloke to me?

Raiders was so good because Lawrence Kasden wrote it - not Lucas. But the screenplays of Skull and LC are different writers as well. "Story by" is a rough idea.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 24, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> Am I the only person on the planet who _doesn't_ like _Star Wars_?
> 
> I'll qualify that - I used to like it. I was blown away by the original when I was a kid.  (Saw it in the cinema on its first run aged 16 or so.)  Like nothing I had ever seen before - big WOW! factor.   Nowadays, I can see past the special effects, and stripped of any nostalgia value, I've come to realise it's not _really_ that good a film.  In fact I fell asleep the last time I watched it.
> 
> His best film was _American Graffiti_ which actually does get better on repeated viewings.



I Saw  Star Wars  as teenager in 1977 .  It was totally unlikely anything id ever seen before.  I loved it and like the two subsequent sequels  Eplire and Jedi . But the Prequel s were a huge disappointment.  Lucas should have let someone else write and direct those films.  I liked t he Abrahms  films , Rogue One and Solo.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 24, 2022)

Swank said:


> How could the man who felt the need to provide backstory explanations for absolutely every Indy characteristic (whip, hat, jacket, snakes, chin scar, name, etc) write something as silly as CS? Seems like the same bloke to me?
> 
> Raiders was so good because Lawrence Kasden wrote it - not Lucas. But the screenplays of Skull and LC are different writers as well. "Story by" is a rough idea.


The inspirations for  the Indiana Jones films  film were those old cliff hanger  movies serials of the 1930's and 1940's , films like* Gunga Din, She, Secreats of the Incas *(In the latter film Incas one of the props from that film can be seen in the Idol temple scene  at the beginning of Raiders. 

I had no idea what to expect when I saw *Raiders of the Lost Ark* in 1981. I was blown away by it . It's still a favorite film as are the sequels.


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## FirsttotheBlood (Jul 24, 2022)

I think Disney is oversaturating the market with both the Marvel and Star Wars products and it has turned me off both of them as a result. 

Maybe it's personal preference,  maybe it's a generational thing, but I'm tired of being hammered in the face with it.


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## Swank (Jul 24, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> The inspirations for  the Indiana Jones films  film were those old cliff hanger  movies serials of the 1930's and 1940's , films like* Gunga Din, She, Secreats of the Incas *(In the latter film Incas one of the props from that film can be seen in the Idol temple scene  at the beginning of Raiders.
> 
> I had no idea what to expect when I saw *Raiders of the Lost Ark* in 1981. I was blown away by it . It's still a favorite film as are the sequels.


I'm not sure I understand the connection between my post and your response.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 24, 2022)

Swank said:


> I'm not sure I understand the connection between my post and your response.



Sorry , I do have a tendency to go into origin of things Histrionics.


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## paranoid marvin (Jul 24, 2022)

I agree with a number of comments that have been made. The storyline for Star Wars isn't the most original, but the trilogy of movies is an experience. You can't look past the spectacle of Death Stars, Star Destroyers, lightsabre duels and the awesome costumes, because those are what made Star Wars what it is. Nostalgia certainly plays a part, but I'm betting that even today most 7 year old kids who had a chance to go to a cinema to watch Star Wars would leave suitably impressed. The humour, the action, the camaraderie remain timeless, and (the original trilogy at least) will go down in history as cinema greats for the forseeable future.

I understand the comments about Rogue One, but I do think it brought things to the party that we hadn't yet seen in the cinematic universe of movies. The original trilogy of movies were quite clear into who were 'good' and who were 'bad', but the line is much less clear here. You have an Imperial pilot defecting, a Rebel shooting another Rebel in the back so that he isn't captured; hardly groundbreaking moves, but not the kinds of things that we had seen before. And certainly has the most downbeat ending of any SW movie, possibly of any Disney movie.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 24, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> I agree with a number of comments that have been made. The storyline for Star Wars isn't the most original, but the trilogy of movies is an experience. You can't look past the spectacle of Death Stars, Star Destroyers, lightsabre duels and the awesome costumes, because those are what made Star Wars what it is. Nostalgia certainly plays a part, but I'm betting that even today most 7 year old kids who had a chance to go to a cinema to watch Star Wars would leave suitably impressed. The humour, the action, the camaraderie remain timeless, and (the original trilogy at least) will go down in history as cinema greats for the forseeable future.
> 
> I understand the comments about Rogue One, but I do think it brought things to the party that we hadn't yet seen in the cinematic universe of movies. The original trilogy of movies were quite clear into who were 'good' and who were 'bad', but the line is much less clear here. You have an Imperial pilot defecting, a Rebel shooting another Rebel in the back so that he isn't captured; hardly groundbreaking moves, but not the kinds of things that we had seen before. And certainly has the most downbeat ending of any SW movie, possibly of any Disney movie.



I wonder if that downbeat ending in Rogue One is going to diminish interest int the Andor prequel series ?


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## paranoid marvin (Jul 24, 2022)

Swank said:


> How could the man who felt the need to provide backstory explanations for absolutely every Indy characteristic (whip, hat, jacket, snakes, chin scar, name, etc) write something as silly as CS? Seems like the same bloke to me?
> 
> Raiders was so good because Lawrence Kasden wrote it - not Lucas. But the screenplays of Skull and LC are different writers as well. "Story by" is a rough idea.



The thing is that by the time of the fourth movie, you already have everything ironed out. It shouldn't be that difficult to follow the same guidebook as for the first three movies. I don't mind backstory explanations, but one of the great things about the previous movies was the chemistry between the main actors - this is totally lacking in Crystal Skull.

The crazy thing is that Lucas had had a smash hit script in Lucasfilm's Fate of Atlantis. This had an interesting, witty script and was similar in style to the other 3 adventures. All they had to do was transfer that over onto film and they would have had a smash hit.


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## paranoid marvin (Jul 24, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> I wonder if that downbeat ending in Rogue One is going to diminish interest int the Andor prequel series ?



It will be interesting to see. There are many more well known characters that could have had their backstory told, but he seems to be one of the more interesting; one of the more ruthless 'good' characters.


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## Swank (Jul 24, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> It will be interesting to see. There are many more well known characters that could have had their backstory told, but he seems to be one of the more interesting; one of the more ruthless 'good' characters.


Isn't it amazing that Star Wars was even watchable considering that it isn't about anyone's backstory?


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## KGeo777 (Jul 24, 2022)

Swank said:


> When is Luke ever reluctant?


He tries to talk himself out of going with Obi Wan Kenobi--"besides, it's such a long way from here."

He has no patience with Yoda--his personality really changes. He faces other hard ships before the swamp
and yet he's so angry.
 There's a theme at work--the ever-growing toxicity of maleness which clashes with Campbell's hero's journey idea (in Return of the Jedi Luke needs to be saved by his father--there's not many examples of that in classic adventure).
The point of the journey is growing into maturity or experience as a positive thing but in Star Wars it is the reverse--it is a bad thing ultimately.
That's why in the end a woman must be the heroic savior figure--the series is full of that--not just princess Leia but the leader of the rebellion is a woman too.
Terminator did that as well as time went on.
Marvel is doing that too.
Although it is going beyond that now to woman as assassin.
They are so reluctant to show male characters in aggressive behavior that they are making the women into killers and then the excuse is "a man made them do it."
I heard the Obi Wan series did that and Marvel did that where the violence was blamed on some male instigator.
 This collection of Star Wars cut scenes has the same idea too-in the first 15 minutes-the girl child who is taken by a man to be raised as a evil warrior. The representation of men in this is interesting to consider.
This must represent several different games so the message is consistent through all of them.


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## paranoid marvin (Jul 24, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> He tries to talk himself out of going with Obi Wan Kenobi--"besides, it's such a long way from here."
> 
> He has no patience with Yoda--his personality really changes. He faces other hard ships before the swamp
> and yet he's so angry.
> ...



In relation Luke, does he need to be rescued by his father, or does he purposely put himself in jeopardy so that his father must choose between himself and the Emperor?

It's interesting that Darth is 'saved' by coming back over from the Dark Side. But I'm not sure that he does. He believes in order and that the Rebel alliance is the enemy of order. That he saves his son's life doesn't change that; it just means that he saves his son's life. He has already told Luke that they can rule the galaxy together, which makes you wonder if he had an intention to kill the Emperor all along and take his place, with Like taking his father's place as the new Emperor's right hand man.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 24, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> There's a theme at work--the ever-growing toxicity of maleness



Yawn!


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## Swank (Jul 24, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> He tries to talk himself out of going with Obi Wan Kenobi--"besides, it's such a long way from here."
> 
> He has no patience with Yoda--his personality really changes. He faces other hard ships before the swamp
> and yet he's so angry.
> ...


Doesn't that all make my point that Lucas subverted the Hero's Journey?


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## Swank (Jul 24, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> He believes in order and that the Rebel alliance is the enemy of order.


When does he say that?


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## KGeo777 (Jul 24, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> Yawn!


"Does not a stream, boundless as ocean, deep as vacuum, yawn between us?”


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## KGeo777 (Jul 24, 2022)

Swank said:


> Doesn't that all make my point that Lucas subverted the Hero's Journey?


I didn't see what you wrote on it-I was just following my train of thought over the cliff.


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## KGeo777 (Jul 24, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> In relation Luke, does he need to be rescued by his father, or does he purposely put himself in jeopardy so that his father must choose between himself and the Emperor?
> 
> It's interesting that Darth is 'saved' by coming back over from the Dark Side. But I'm not sure that he does. He believes in order and that the Rebel alliance is the enemy of order. That he saves his son's life doesn't change that; it just means that he saves his son's life. He has already told Luke that they can rule the galaxy together, which makes you wonder if he had an intention to kill the Emperor all along and take his place, with Like taking his father's place as the new Emperor's right hand man.


The characterization is all over the place.
Luke may have let himself be victimized to bring out his father's love.
Maybe--but it looked to me like he was unprepared for the blasts of energy.
Also, Darth Vader is different in each movie. In the first he is the henchman, in the second he is a scheming villain who is in control of his own mind.
 The Emperor is presented as the weak one--he is not confident about surviving against Luke.
In the third, Vader is the mind slave and the Emperor is totally confident.
The impression one gets from the original movie is that the Emperor is a figurehead leader--he has no real power, Tarkin is the real leader of the Empire and Darth Vader obeys him.
Tarkin even threatens Vader "I'm taking an awful risk Vader, this had better work."


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## Swank (Jul 24, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> The characterization is all over the place.
> Luke may have let himself be victimized to bring out his father's love.
> Maybe--but it looked to me like he was unprepared for the blasts of energy.
> Also, Darth Vader is different in each movie. In the first he is the henchman, in the second he is a scheming villain who is in control of his own mind.
> ...


Tarkin is the head of the Death Star, and possibly the Empire's military. But the Empire has all sorts of people that don't work directly for him. Vader is one of them. Tarkin clearly feel he has been granted enough authority and autonomy to handle the military matters for the Emperor, and even express his displeasure about Vader to him. I don't know why you'd assume he's a figurehead from Tarkin's SW dialogue.

Vader is also fairly consistent in being an independent operative of the Emperor, even if he acknowledges Tarkin's authority. Vader is like the head of the SS in WWII Germany - below the head of the army, but with a more personal connection to Hitler. Also, Vader is a lord, implying he's a member of an aristocracy that is separate from the military meritocracy. "Mof" appears to be a rank like Marshall or Bashar rather than a title like Baron.

But, after Tarkin's death, Vader's position in the Empire's military may have changed.


Vader does as he sees fit when out of direct contact with the Emperor, but we do see the Emperor's coercive power in Empire during the holo session. When in his presence, the Emperor can read and manipulate Vader in a way he cannot remotely. He also has something to lose when he goes in front of the Emperor - his son.

So I don't see Vader as changing so much as witnessing his authority in different situations.


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## .matthew. (Jul 24, 2022)

I'd say that both franchises lack art, soul, creativity, or even the slightest hint of originality.

That said, I did enjoy the early MCU movies, but rapidly lost interest as they crammed more and more characters together to drag the fans of one into the other. Don't even get me started on the Avengers finales...

I suppose the first Guardians of the Galaxy was fun too, so I'll revise that first statement to mean 'today' as the first few ventures were enjoyable and accessible to watch.


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## Swank (Jul 24, 2022)

.matthew. said:


> That said, I did enjoy the early MCU movies,


If Iron Man wasn't so fun, I don't know if they would have progressed from there. They had already made two Hulk's that didn't lead to the Avengers.


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## KGeo777 (Jul 24, 2022)

Swank said:


> Tarkin is the head of the Death Star, and possibly the Empire's military. But the Empire has all sorts of people that don't work directly for him. Vader is one of them. Tarkin clearly feel he has been granted enough authority and autonomy to handle the military matters for the Emperor, and even express his displeasure about Vader to him. I don't know why you'd assume he's a figurehead from Tarkin's SW dialogue.


Because Tarkin makes all the decisions and there is no evidence the Emperor has any direct role as Vader's boss. "He helped the Emperor hunt down and destroy the Jedi."

 The Force religion is also so vague in 1977 that Tarkin seems to regard it as something of a myth. If The Emperor was a Sithy person why did Tarkin act like Vader was the last practitioner? And the reactions everyone has to the choke hold suggests they had never seen Vader do that before.

It's not like they had it all planned out. They changed things with each movie.
The Emperor in TESB is not sharp-witted or gifted with prophecy.


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## KGeo777 (Jul 24, 2022)

Swank said:


> Vader does as he sees fit when out of direct contact with the Emperor, but we do see the Emperor's coercive power in Empire during the holo session. When in his presence, the Emperor can read and manipulate Vader in a way he cannot remotely. He also has something to lose when he goes in front of the Emperor - his son.


Oh-you must be going by the revised versions. I am going by the original theatrical version.
The Emperor in the original version is very worried about Luke and Vader suggests they can try to make him an ally.  
The Emperor says "can it be done?"
And at the end of the movie Vader is telling Luke that they can join against the Emperor.
They dropped that layer of complexity for ROTJ.
 They made the Emperor the super villain and Vader was under his control.
And the Empire's military was now getting direct orders from the Emperor.

And originally, Vader was not Luke's father.
That seems a given. It was not pre-planned.
Likewise Leia was not Luke's sister originally but I suspect the Other was always going to be female if Lucas had done it himself.


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## KGeo777 (Jul 25, 2022)

Actually the Emperor in TESB does have some prophetic powers--but it doesn't appear to be developed. He gets spooked by a vision that Luke will harm him and has to phone Vader for a comfort talk.


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## Swank (Jul 25, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> Oh-you must be going by the revised versions. I am going by the original theatrical version.
> The Emperor in the original version is very worried about Luke and Vader suggests they can try to make him an ally.
> The Emperor says "can it be done?"
> And at the end of the movie Vader is telling Luke that they can join against the Emperor.
> ...


No, I meant the theatrical. But I think you misread my post:  Vader remains fairly independent when out of physical contact with the Emperor - including when they are communicating via holo. When in person, the Emperor is extremely dangerous and Vader has less leeway to speak his mind.


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## Swank (Jul 25, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> And at the end of the movie Vader is telling Luke that they can join against the Emperor.
> They dropped that layer of complexity for ROTJ.


They didn't drop it, Vader changed. He witnessed Luke's sacrifice in ESB and his confidence when he turns himself in. Vader realizes that Luke is not going to team up with him for anything other than the destruction of the Empire, and he's questioning whether he wants to back the Emperor that he was already thinking of killing against a son he admires.



KGeo777 said:


> And originally, Vader was not Luke's father.
> That seems a given. It was not pre-planned.
> Likewise Leia was not Luke's sister originally but I suspect the Other was always going to be female if Lucas had done it himself.


Originally, Vader has a relationship with both Anakin and Ben. The only thing that changed is the nature of that relationship - Ben's assertion of "killed" became philosophical not biological. It isn't like they made Greedo Luke's father - there was already a strong familial connection.

The "other" is a line from ESB. ESB is also the film that reveals her being his sister. How could there be any kind of "other"?


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## KGeo777 (Jul 25, 2022)

Swank said:


> The "other" is a line from ESB. ESB is also the film that reveals her being his sister. How could there be any kind of "other"?



In 2005 Gary Kurtz said the original plan for the sequels was that in ROTJ Vader and the emperor fight for control of Luke, Vader dies, Han also dies, Leia becomes the new head of the Republic, while Luke goes off in the wilderness dealing with remnants of the Empire.  In Episode 9, Luke confronts the Emperor and seeks the Other.
Rey became the Other. They shuffled a few things around but stuck to the Lucas plot line.

In ROTJ Obi Wan Kenobi didn't know about Leia being a child of Anakin yet in the Prequels he did.
Just because Leia hears a message from Luke doesn't mean she is his sister. It may have been a Jedi power like a choke hold.  They needed some way to get help for Luke--what else could they do?  So he sends out a psychic cry for help to whoever can hear him. It's either her or Chewie.

Kenobi and Luke weren't related yet Luke sees his ghost.

And you said that Vader was stronger when he wasn't in direct contact with the Emperor but in ROTJ when he was with Luke he says he must obey the Emperor even though he is not on the moon of Endor. he is definitely behaving in a way that suggests a mental struggle---ignoring everything he did prior--like his mass murders.
TESB set it up that Vader would kill anyone who displeased him (and now his choke power could go for long distances--he could kill someone on a different ship). But at the end he leaves Piett alone because he is distracted by Luke.

The reality is Vader was originally a villain. 
He met Leia a few times yet he never sensed she was related or anything.

When he says of Luke "the Force is strong with this one" I don't think it was intended that he  felt Force power in him--I think it was meant as a figure of speech like "God's on his side."  The way he says it sounds like "stubborn *******" not anything heartfelt or mysterious.

The other side of it is that Obi Wan Kenobi goes from being some classic old warrior to someone who really screwed up and created the enemy that destroyed the Jedi Knights!
Imagine if he had told Luke in the 1977 movie--"come with me on an adventure--oh BTW--I guess i should confess, I caused the Jedi to die out. Alright let's go."


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## Swank (Jul 25, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> In 2005 Gary Kurtz said the original plan for the sequels was that in ROTJ Vader and the emperor fight for control of Luke, Vader dies, Han also dies, Leia becomes the new head of the Republic, while Luke goes off in the wilderness dealing with remnants of the Empire.  In Episode 9, Luke confronts the Emperor and seeks the Other.
> Rey became the Other. They shuffled a few things around but stuck to the Lucas plot line.
> 
> In ROTJ Obi Wan Kenobi didn't know about Leia being a child of Anakin yet in the Prequels he did.
> ...


I think you're taking a macro view of how stories are created and presuming that the creative process is the same as the actual story. It is not.

Star Wars is what you see in the film - nothing more or less. Star Wars may have started in Lucas' head as Flash Gordon, but Flash Gordon is not on the screen. ESB is a complete film with complete ideas - that includes the way the writers integrated old story ideas with new. ESB is about the Skywalker family discovering each other. Their perceptive powers are limited and it takes a lot of awareness and contact for the characters to see it. The Force is not Ancestry.com. The Empire has an extensive intelligence service to piece together who Ben was traveling with - they had already investigated and killed Luke's family.

And subsequent films, cartoons, whatever don't change what happened in that film. There is no dishonesty in how Luke, Leia and Vader were unaware their connection in SW. That's why the surprises of ESB work so well - because there is neither conflict nor foreshadowing in SW. That's good writing.



Ben is not a "ghost". Jedis don't haunt people, they become different types of life and they communicate directly with the Jedis that they want to. Leia doesn't see Ben, Anakin or Yoda. The Force is not fantasy - it is an aspect of a science fiction story. It has rules that are different than the occult. There is almost no overlap between discorporate Jedi and traditional ghosts.


"The force is strong in this one" is likely an observation of how Luke is flying, rather than any sense or figure of speech. Han might have observed something similar after he witnessed Luke block a training droid while blindfolded. Luke is likely dodging fire in his X-wing in a way that defies the normal operation of a fighter.


And Vader doesn't qualify why he must obey the Emperor. He just says that he 'must', not why. We have no idea what sort of coercion is at play, or even if it is basic loyalty for saving his life. It isn't implied to necessarily be a direct thrall to his power.


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## KGeo777 (Jul 25, 2022)

Swank said:


> There is no dishonesty in how Luke, Leia and Vader were unaware their connection in SW.


 Luke and Leia almost had a romantic relationship--that was one of the criticisms of ROTJ. Many people felt it was a cheap surprise twist that they were related.

Even the claim that Darth Vader was Luke's father was questioned because he was a murderer--he may have been lying for personal advantage.
That is why Luke has to ask Yoda for confirmation.

 Was the Tarzan yell uttered by Chewbacca also good writing?


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## BAYLOR (Jul 25, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> Luke and Leia almost had a romantic relationship--that was one of the criticisms of ROTJ. Many people felt it was a cheap surprise twist that they were related.
> 
> Even the claim that Darth Vader was Luke's father was questioned because he was a murderer--he may have been lying for personal advantage.
> That is why Luke has to ask Yoda for confirmation.
> ...



When Lucas did the first film  there was no direct inference that Vader was in any way related to Luke .   Obi Wan told Luke his father  was betrayed and murdered by a young Jedi  named Darth Vader . That there tells us that Vader was  separate  person altogether from Anakin . In an   an earlier version of the story  which was was adapted as Graphic novel,  Vader was not Luke's father at.


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## Swank (Jul 25, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> Luke and Leia almost had a romantic relationship--that was one of the criticisms of ROTJ. Many people felt it was a cheap surprise twist that they were related.
> 
> Even the claim that Darth Vader was Luke's father was questioned because he was a murderer--he may have been lying for personal advantage.
> That is why Luke has to ask Yoda for confirmation.


Questioned by who? Luke and the audience should be skeptical. However, it fits with the story given in SW.



KGeo777 said:


> Was the Tarzan yell uttered by Chewbacca also good writing?


No. Neither were multiple musical numbers and Ewoks in general. ROTJ is the beginning of the end as far as Lucas turning great filmmaking into schlock. ROTJ is not nearly as good as the prior films - it just isn't nearly as awful as everything after.


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## Le Panda du Mal (Jul 25, 2022)

I prefer not to make a fuss about continuity. IMO it gets in the way of a good story more often than it benefits. I wish people nowadays wrote things more like folk tales or, say, Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur where contradictions and disjunctions abound and are passed over without comment.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 25, 2022)

Swank said:


> Questioned by who? Luke and the audience should be skeptical. However, it fits with the story given in SW.
> 
> 
> No. Neither were multiple musical numbers and Ewoks in general. ROTJ is the beginning of the end as far as Lucas turning great filmmaking into schlock. ROTJ is not nearly as good as the prior films - it just isn't nearly as awful as everything after.



Lucas  is no a particular good writer  and never had any master plan for Star Wars.  I think it likely that  he didn't  expect it to become the blockbuster  that  it did. After did hit , he had to scramble  to come up with story ideas  for Empire and Jedi.    The main reason reason Empire is as good as it is because of the input and contribution of  Leigh Brackett  . As to Jedi , it would have been a better film had they dispensed with the Ewok completely.

As for Prequels , Lucas should come with story concepts and handed  the writing over to Either Kevin J  Anderson and  Timothy Zahn and let them flesh out the storylines for the films.  And he should have let some else handle the direction and production of those films.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 25, 2022)

Le Panda du Mal said:


> I prefer not to make a fuss about continuity. IMO it gets in the way of a good story more often than it benefits. I wish people nowadays wrote things more like folk tales or, say, Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur where contradictions and disjunctions abound and are passed over without comment.



Bad writing is bad writing.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 25, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> When Lucas did the first film  there was no direct inference that Vader was in any way related to Luke .   Obi Wan told Luke his father  was betrayed and murdered by a young Jedi  named Darth Vader . That there tells us that Vader was  separate  person altogether from Anakin . In an   an earlier version of the story  which was was adapted as Graphic novel,  Vader was not Luke's father at.



I'd always assumed - even from the go  - that they were the same. The implication was there.  Jekyll and Hyde.


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## Le Panda du Mal (Jul 25, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> Bad writing is bad writing.



I don't consider that bad writing. *shrug*


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## BAYLOR (Jul 25, 2022)

Le Panda du Mal said:


> I don't consider that bad writing. *shrug*



Well, in all honesty , I do accept accept a certain amount of shlock writing if the product  is entertaining . For example, I love *Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea * Movie and TV Series .


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## .matthew. (Jul 25, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> As to Jedi , it would have been a better film had they dispensed with the Ewok completely.


I beg your pardon?!?!

I know it's objectively true, but they were still entertaining to young viewers, and Star Wars was always conceived as a children's movie.


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## KGeo777 (Jul 25, 2022)

Swank said:


> Questioned by who? Luke and the audience should be skeptical. However, it fits with the story given in SW.


By changing the nature of characters.
Obi Wan Kenobi goes from being a retired knight to the one who brought about  the destruction of the Jedi.
Darth Vader goes from being bad guy to redeemed fellow. Personality and individual decisions get murky when the Force is utilized to explain it all.


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## Swank (Jul 25, 2022)

.matthew. said:


> I beg your pardon?!?!
> 
> I know it's objectively true, but they were still entertaining to young viewers, and Star Wars was always conceived as a children's movie.


SW and ESB are pretty gruesome for kids films. Burnt people, torture, mutilation. The adventure sensibility is youthful, but like Jaws rather than Goonies.


KGeo777 said:


> By changing the nature of characters.
> Obi Wan Kenobi goes from being a retired knight to the one who brought about  the destruction of the Jedi.
> Darth Vader goes from being bad guy to redeemed fellow. Personality and individual decisions get murky when the Force is utilized to explain it all.


Ben didn't cause Vader to go Dark. Nor was Vader redeemed. The Force isn't Christianity.


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## KGeo777 (Jul 25, 2022)

Swank said:


> Ben didn't cause Vader to go Dark. Nor was Vader redeemed. The Force isn't Christianity.


What do you mean he wasn't redeemed? He's standing there with Yoda and Kenobi smiling.
The Emperor in ROTJ is controlling Vader's mind. "I must obey my master."
Not the same Vader in TESB or SW.
He's clearly a free agent in the previous films.

They altered his personality to serve the plot.
Just as they did in TESB with Luke. When he gets to Dagobah he becomes frustrated and impatient.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 25, 2022)

Psssst! guys, they're just movies.


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## KGeo777 (Jul 26, 2022)

I don't have a problem with the idea of the ewoks but making them resemble teddy bears was distracting and having other alien forest creatures would have been better IMO.
The Gorax from the Ewoks movie should have been in it to wrestle AT-AT walkers. There were plains-dwelling creatures called Yuzzum which were dumped.
There's something cheap to ROTJ -the Jabba puppet is advanced but a lot of the FX scenes feel repetitive. Another Death Star?
It's visually underwhelming compared to TESB.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 26, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> I don't have a problem with the idea of the ewoks but making them resemble teddy bears was distracting and having other alien forest creatures would have been better IMO.
> The Gorax from the Ewoks movie should have been in it to wrestle AT-AT walkers. There were plains-dwelling creatures called Yuzzum which were dumped.
> There's something cheap to ROTJ -the Jabba puppet is advanced but a lot of the FX scenes feel repetitive. Another Death Star?
> It's visually underwhelming compared to TESB.



Which is why the next Star Wars movie should be *Star Wars :The Great Ewok Hunt*.


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## Swank (Jul 26, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> What do you mean he wasn't redeemed? He's standing there with Yoda and Kenobi smiling.
> The Emperor in ROTJ is controlling Vader's mind. "I must obey my master."
> Not the same Vader in TESB or SW.
> He's clearly a free agent in the previous films.
> ...


As I said, we don't know what Vader meant.

And, as I stated_, _becoming a Force ghost is not the equivalent of going to heaven. It isn't a faith and it doesn't come with a karmic reward.


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## KGeo777 (Jul 26, 2022)

Swank said:


> As I said, we don't know what Vader meant.
> 
> And, as I stated_, _becoming a Force ghost is not the equivalent of going to heaven. It isn't a faith and it doesn't come with a karmic reward.


Well Anakin and Yoda and Obi Wan looked mighty pleased around the campfire!


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## Swank (Jul 26, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> Well Anakin and Yoda and Obi Wan looked mighty pleased around the campfire!


Why wouldn't they be pleased to have lost two opponents and regained an ally?


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## .matthew. (Jul 26, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> Which is why the next Star Wars movie should be *Star Wars :The Great Ewok Hunt*.


Ewok: First Blood Part II


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## .matthew. (Jul 26, 2022)

Swank said:


> SW and ESB are pretty gruesome for kids films. Burnt people, torture, mutilation. The adventure sensibility is youthful, but like Jaws rather than Goonies.


First stated in 1977, but later reiterated, George Lucas confirmed Star Wars was made for kids, specifically those around 12 years of age. I was about that age when I saw them and I loved all three. Objectively they were family-friendly kids' movies with a universal rating in the UK.


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## KGeo777 (Jul 26, 2022)

.matthew. said:


> First stated in 1977, but later reiterated, George Lucas confirmed Star Wars was made for kids, specifically those around 12 years of age. I was about that age when I saw them and I loved all three. Objectively they were family-friendly kids' movies with a universal rating in the UK.


He said the target audience was 7 and up around 1980 when asked. The toys were aimed at 7 and up, not 12 and up--although he did say that he expected Star Wars to do about the same as a Planet of the Apes movie--and that was for certain, 12 and up--he was never consistent about things.
After the prequels were criticized, he said people needed to remember that the target audience was 6 and up!


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## KGeo777 (Jul 26, 2022)

Swank said:


> Why wouldn't they be pleased to have lost two opponents and regained an ally?


That's a Heavenly kind of depiction. It's not much different from the idea of angels or spirits of the dead coming back to influence people. It's more Christian than Greek pagan.
The first movie was vague enough that when Luke hears his voice in the trench--it may have been in his mind or some last trace of spirit making its presence known before it goes off into the cosmos. But the sequels made it explicit--Yoda can hear Obi Wan speaking too.
And Kenobi's self-sacrifice--martyrdom, that was Christian. Turn the other cheek. He let himself be killed by an enemy. The 1977 version where Darth Vader was the bad guy.


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## .matthew. (Jul 26, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> After the prequels were criticized, he said people needed to remember that the target audience was 6 and up!


Yea, I hated the prequels... but looking back now it's like yes, they were fun movies for little kids, and it was wrong to judge them by any other standard.


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## KGeo777 (Jul 26, 2022)

.matthew. said:


> Yea, I hated the prequels... but looking back now it's like yes, they were fun movies for little kids, and it was wrong to judge them by any other standard.


Except he also claimed it was a political movie-about the senate and scheming and trade negotiations--little kids don't care about that stuff. He was making excuses because he didn't expect the negative reaction.
I think Gary Kurtz had discouraged the kind of humor that crept into ROTJ when he was absent  (the burping alien).


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## .matthew. (Jul 26, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> Except he also claimed it was a political movie-about the senate and scheming and trade negotiations--little kids don't care about that stuff. He was making excuses because he didn't expect the negative reaction.
> I think Gary Kurtz had discouraged the kind of humor that crept into ROTJ when he was absent  (the burping alien).


Perhaps, but then again, the main characters started as children (or close to) and even in later films they were much younger than the original trilogy actors. All the goofy droids and goofier Jar Jar Binks stuff certainly weren't aimed at adults, and even the senate scenes were over-the-top CGI and silly acting.

Plus, considering he said the first trilogy was made for children even as it was receiving wild acclaim, does suggest the prequels would be as well, and that it wasn't an excuse.


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## KGeo777 (Jul 26, 2022)

.matthew. said:


> Perhaps, but then again, the main characters started as children (or close to) and even in later films they were much younger than the original trilogy actors. All the goofy droids and goofier Jar Jar Binks stuff certainly weren't aimed at adults, and even the senate scenes were over-the-top CGI and silly acting.
> 
> Plus, considering he said the first trilogy was made for children even as it was receiving wild acclaim, does suggest the prequels would be as well, and that it wasn't an excuse.


I think the original film was truly aimed at 12 and up not little kids specifically despite the toys.  Buck Rogers wasn't aimed at little kids either and they also had toys. Logan's Run too.
Kids were taken along for the ride.
But after Gary Kurtz was gone, the childish humor and focus were ramped up. Lucas just has a bizarre sense of humor and it comes through without anyone to discourage it.
He said in 1999 that JarJar Binks would be a major character and people would have to get used to him but he dropped him quick for the sequel.

Exsqueeze me.


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## paranoid marvin (Jul 27, 2022)

I think part of the issue with Phantom Menace especially was that it wasn't sure what demographic it was aiming at. Was it fans of the original movies who were now adults, their children, or the whole family.

I suppose that the perfect answer would have been to make the movie for children of all ages, but this didn't quite come across with what we saw on screen. As someone whose only experience with SW was the 3 movies and some of the videogames (Tie Fighter, X-Wing) political shenanigans with a trade dispute and the discussion around midi-chlorians really went over my head, and were totally at odds with the first 3 movies. In fact t was only on second or third viewing that this made any sense.

But the whole back trilogy of movies was so poorly put together. The actors just didn't have the same chemistry of the original trilogy, the onscreen story didn't make sense, the dialogue was unimaginative and the humour was more Spaceballs than Star Wars.


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## KGeo777 (Jul 27, 2022)

I regret seeing the first two prequels in theaters. Most disappointing theater movie experience I have had.
After about 5 minutes of the Phantom Menace the mind starts to go..uh oh...something is wrong here..
Even the opening crawl text is poorly written.
I did like R2D2 being on board the spaceship--that reminded me of 1930s sailing ship movies where he is being recognized for courage by the queen but having C3P0 made by Luke's father on Tatooine is  incestuously lazy. How hard would it have been to have him serving on the same ship with R2D2?
Darth Maul was a neat character design (I can see the logic to it--Darth Vader was a mechanized skull, Maul is an organic devil face).
And Williams' score--I didn't know on the original films he had a score arranger or two--they are the ones who shaped the score for the movies--and it sure makes a difference.


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## Mon0Zer0 (Aug 9, 2022)

I remember a video somewhere that mounted a spirited defence of the Prequels as a new kind of film making - how the clunky dialogue and wooden acting was a genuinely worthy form of the medium, albeit one that sets itself apart from what we normally think of as good. They have a mythic style that has an intelligence at work that isn't someone who doesn't know what they're doing - but that has pioneered a unique voice that should be appreciated.

I don't really agree with that but it made me think of them in a new light. I'll agree that the tone of the stories, the content set around a war and Lucas' intention to kiddy them up a bit do make for unwelcome bedfellows. I don't really believe Lucas made SW1 (4) for anyone other than himself. I think he just went with his gut to make a homage to flash gordon, hidden fortress and adventure serials of his youth. Much of the weirdness is his own artistic expression, rather than a commercial decision or chasing after audiences. All the toys and commerce came after the fact almost by accident.  He was so guided by his own intuition that he doesn't really understand what made Star Wars work, questionable decisions like Jar Jar or an allegory for the death of democracy or the bad comedy are emblematic of how out of touch with his audience he is. 

Star Wars is an auteur driven universe. There is Lucas's psychology in all of his SW work, from the fifties hot rods, to war movies to his concerns over politics to "Luke S" even being a Lucas self-insert.  When you remove someone who is so integral to the universe from the picture you remove all substance and all you are left with is the aesthetics and the director's misunderstanding of the universe. Whether it works or not is down to the director.

Either way, Star Wars is personal to Lucas, and when you change that to a tent-pole committee that is concerned with hitting all four key audience segments and broadening the universe to tell a wide range of stories within a commercial franchise you water it down to the point of just being generic nostalgia (remember Bobba Fett! remember the Saarlac!).

To Disney's credit they did at least turn one movie over to a director and trusted them to provide their vision. The problem is, their vision was more concerned with tearing down the past than it was being part of a coherent trilogy. They thought they could Lucas it and create a Trilogy out of one movie, without realising that Lucas had a vision and attachment to the main character. Without one person at the helm to guide the direction they ended up at the end of the second movie with nowhere to go and too many story threads to conclude within one movie. 

I enjoyed Rogue One at the time, it was a WWII movie and because of that it actually felt Star Wars, but I remember it being bloated and being bored in parts. None of the characters interested me in the slightest. They looked cool, but they were nothingy. Something I could never say about the original trilogy. Still, I enjoyed it far more than any of the new trilogy. The best bit of Rogue One was seeing Vader go ham. 

Disney are not in the least concerned about the longevity of Star Wars. They want to milk it and get a return on their investment as soon as possible. That doesn't mean they aren't concerned with the product,  but they are more concerned about it matching brand values and creating broad demographic interest than in their core audiences. If it brings in people to Disney + and to the rides they're fine. The only way they can do this is to make it about something other than the Skywalker family, and when they do that they lose the soul of Star Wars - see TLJ. 

When I was a kid I watched Star Wars on repeat. I could watch it two, three times in a row, to the point that, as a 46 year old I can still recite some of the dialogue off by heart. Following the sequel trilogy I no longer have any interest in Star Wars at all and actively go out of my way to avoid it if I can. Is that a good thing?


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## sule (Aug 10, 2022)

There's just too much too often. Disney either can't afford to or doesn't want to tone back on the amount of things they're shoveling out, to the point where shows (and movies) are released without actually being worth our time. With them releasing so much stuff all the time, none of it gets to feel special. But, they're all so ragged around the edges that it's a blessing that we don't have to think too long about them; however, if they cut down on the amount of content and focused on making the stuff they release better and more polished maybe we'd want to spend more time with them.

Book of Boba Fett was sloppy and slow, and needed what felt like an eleventh hour injection of Mandalorian to fill in the runtime. I didn't watch Kenobi, but it sounded like there were a huge amount of unforced errors with plotting, characters, and just basic things (even I've seen that awful moment of him attempting to sneak through Empire HQ with a child hiding under his coat and it looks bleedingly obvious). The trailers for Andor look good (more Stellan Skarsgard, please), but I'm pretty nervous that it just won't be as good as it should be, and that has everything to do with the last few outings from Star Wars and nothing to do with Andor itself. Do I trust them to make a good one this time? At this point, Season 1 of Mandalorian feels like a happy accident whose success isn't going to be repeated any time soon.

Meanwhile, the main problem with Marvel shows appears to be the CGI - it just looks bad, and apparently some effects workers and houses have begun to refuse Marvel contracts because they are a pain to work with. The stories with Marvel are hit-or-miss, often within the same series. WandaVision was incredible until the finale, Loki was alternately mind-blowing and mind-numbing, Falcon just didn't work, Hawkeye was sometimes fun...and I'll be honest: I haven't sat through Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel (and I'm going to skip She Hulk) because I'm just tired of sitting down to watch these shows. I've already fallen behind, and there's no point in catching up. To be honest, it doesn't feel like the shows matter. Strange 2 was, in theory, building off of WandaVision but Raimi (allegedly) didn't watch the entire show and it felt like you could understand the movie without seeing the show - so can we really expect any of the future movies to truly care about the shows that fed into them (like The Marvels)?

It's literally that there's just too much of it. Nothing feels special, and even if they do hit on something spectacular it doesn't get enough time in the spotlight before the next thing comes trundling down the tracks.


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## BAYLOR (Aug 10, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> I regret seeing the first two prequels in theaters. Most disappointing theater movie experience I have had.
> After about 5 minutes of the Phantom Menace the mind starts to go..uh oh...something is wrong here..
> Even the opening crawl text is poorly written.
> I did like R2D2 being on board the spaceship--that reminded me of 1930s sailing ship movies where he is being recognized for courage by the queen but having C3P0 made by Luke's father on Tatooine is  incestuously lazy. How hard would it have been to have him serving on the same ship with R2D2?
> ...



I think it would been a good thing for the Franchise  had The Phantom menace flopped at the box office .


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## BAYLOR (Aug 29, 2022)

.matthew. said:


> Yea, I hated the prequels... but looking back now it's like yes, they were fun movies for little kids, and it was wrong to judge them by any other standard.



Ive tried watching them in the years since , They haven't improved with age , the awful writing , crapy acting , the goofy dumb dialogueand   overblown special effects  and Jar Jar Binks   are all still there  to remind me of why I find them to be such wretched  films. Even the climatic lightsaber duel in the molten lava chamber between Anakin and Obi Wan is one the worst climatic battle ive ever seen. Surround  by that much flowing hot liquid  metal should have friend the both of them. And in then that speech that Obi wan gave to Anakin after hacking od his arm and two of his legs and lament  " You were my brother Anakin."  This is bad at som many levels.

What I find laughable is people people complain as much as thye do about the Abrams films , which are so much better those  crappy prequels.


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## .matthew. (Aug 29, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> What I find laughable is people people complain as much as thye do about the Abrams films , which are so much better those crappy prequels.


Well... so much better than diarrhoea isn't saying much when the Abrams films are only a slightly more solid bowel movement. 

At a certain point, I wish people would stop being so obsessed with franchises that the studios feel safe in releasing such terrible cash grabs


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## BAYLOR (Aug 29, 2022)

.matthew. said:


> Well... so much better than diarrhoea isn't saying much when the Abrams films are only a slightly more solid bowel movement.
> 
> At a certain point, I wish people would stop being so obsessed with franchises that the studios feel safe in releasing such terrible cash grabs



The thing of it is if fans have accepted the prequels , they'll  come around to accepting the Abrams films.  I did enjoy those films  of the Disney films , my favorite is *Rogue One* and I do have soft spot for* Solo *and wish it had been a  success at the box office.


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## Le Panda du Mal (Aug 29, 2022)

The Abrams movies are, on the surface, much more competent productions but are shot through with soullessness. The prequel films are terrible, but in a way that is charming, almost naive, like watching a kid mash his action figures together in the most expensive sandbox in the world.


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## BAYLOR (Aug 29, 2022)

Le Panda du Mal said:


> The Abrams movies are, on the surface, much more competent productions but are shot through with soullessness. The prequel films are terrible, but in a way that is charming, almost naive, like watching a kid mash his action figures together in the most expensive sandbox in the world.



Lucas's first wife Marcia Lucas was the reason   the earlier films were as good as they were , she had a knack for knowing  what worked.and what didn't and  could tell him no, this is a bad idea,  don't do it and,  he'd listen.   The problem was , she wasn't there . I think had she been involved in the the prequels, they  would have far been better .  Jar Jar probably still would have happened but would have been far better conceived character than what we got.  After Disney  took over over Star Wars , Lucas offered ideas for films , Disney wasn't Interested.  And I seriously doubt Lucas and J J Abrams could have worked together.


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## Swank (Aug 29, 2022)

I don't think Abrams is a good director. Everything he does looks cheap.


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## Le Panda du Mal (Aug 29, 2022)

Yeah, I think the big problem with the prequels is that Lucas had been surrounded for 20 years by fans and yes-men telling him what a genius he was. So the result was a very indulgent trilogy full of bad ideas and laughable dialogue. Still I find those movies more fun to watch than the very slick sequel trilogy that feels like it was written by an algorithm.


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## BAYLOR (Aug 29, 2022)

Le Panda du Mal said:


> Yeah, I think the big problem with the prequels is that Lucas had been surrounded for 20 years by fans and yes-men telling him what a genius he was. So the result was a very indulgent trilogy full of bad ideas and laughable dialogue. Still I find those movies more fun to watch than the very slick sequel trilogy that feels like it was written by an algorithm.



What they could've  and  should  been  was  better then what we got.    


What we got  instead , isn't even fun to watch.


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## Le Panda du Mal (Aug 29, 2022)

I don't know. I still love to croak out the line, "Around the survivors a perimeter create" at the flimsiest pretext.


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## Rodders (Aug 29, 2022)

I don't have a problem with Abrams, my issue is with how the franchise has been managed since Disney took over.


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## paranoid marvin (Aug 29, 2022)

If Lucas' prequels had been of the same quality as Disney's sequels, I would have been happy with that. The sequels aren't perfect, but they are perfectly watchable. The prequels aren't; the storyline, the dialogue, the acting is amateurish. That they come from a very experienced director with virtually unlimited amounts of cash and pretty much the entire range of Hollywood actors at his disposal makes them unforgivably poor.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I've never come out of a cinema feeling so deflated as I did at the end of Phantom Menace (although Crystal Skull ran it pretty close).


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## BAYLOR (Aug 29, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> If Lucas' prequels had been of the same quality as Disney's sequels, I would have been happy with that. The sequels aren't perfect, but they are perfectly watchable. The prequels aren't; the storyline, the dialogue, the acting is amateurish. That they come from a very experienced director with virtually unlimited amounts of cash and pretty much the entire range of Hollywood actors at his disposal makes them unforgivably poor.
> 
> As I mentioned elsewhere, I've never come out of a cinema feeling so deflated as I did at the end of Phantom Menace (although Crystal Skull ran it pretty close).



The climatic duel in Revenge of the Sith  with Anakin and Obi Wan was laughably bad I waded  through  these three turgid  films for this crappy poorly acted climax ?  

And one thing has always bothered me. The very  powerful edi Council has pa owerful Sith Lord in their midst and they were not aware of him? Even Yoda couldn't  sense  or figure out that it Palatine was Sith and the one pulling the strings  ? Oh wait , Lucas came up with this bulishit on the fly  convenient  notion that the Sith could hide  himself from detection by Jedi . I  put that this same crud category as Midichlorians.


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## paranoid marvin (Aug 29, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> The climatic duel in Revenge of the Sith  with Anakin and Obi Wan was laughably bad I waded  through  these three turgid  films for this crappy poorly acted climax ?
> 
> And one thing has always bothered me. The very  powerful edi Council has pa owerful Sith Lord in their midst and they were not aware of him? Even Yoda couldn't  sense  or figure out that it Palatine was Sith and the one pulling the strings  ? Oh wait , Lucas came up with this bulishit on the fly  convenient  notion that the Sith could hide  himself from detection by Jedi . I  put that this same crud category as Midichlorians.



Discussing midichlorians, trade disputes etc. - and this was supposedly a film for kids to enjoy? Lucas really messed up big time. What probably annoyed me the most was when the 2 Jedi took on Darth  Maul; you aren't meant to have 2 good guys taking on 1 bad guy, no matter how adept he is. 2 bad guys taking on 1 good guy, yes - but not the other way around.


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## AllanR (Aug 29, 2022)

Pariah here, have not seen a Marvel or Star Wars movie in over twenty years, so I don't really think much of who owns them.


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## BAYLOR (Aug 29, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> Discussing midichlorians, trade disputes etc. - and this was supposedly a film for kids to enjoy? Lucas really messed up big time. What probably annoyed me the most was when the 2 Jedi took on Darth  Maul; you aren't meant to have 2 good guys taking on 1 bad guy, no matter how adept he is. 2 bad guys taking on 1 good guy, yes - but not the other way around.



And they killed off Maul way too soon.  And how its is that  two Jedi  masters together  couldn't defeat him together and yet at the end Obi wan alone who is the least accomplished of the two defeats Maul.


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## paranoid marvin (Aug 29, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> And they killed off Maul way too soon.  And how its is that  two Jedi  masters together  couldn't defeat him together and yet at the end Obi wan alone who is the least accomplished of the two defeats Maul.




Yes , Darth Maul is easily the best 'new' character to come out of the prequels. They could have made the trilogy around his pursuit of Anakin, with perhaps the third movie having Skywalker defeat Maul and take his place at the side of the Emperor, this could have made for a much more compelling storyline. A missed opportunity, amongst a sea of missed opportunities - but perhaps this one could have saved the series.


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## BAYLOR (Aug 29, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> Yes , Darth Maul is easily the best 'new' character to come out of the prequels. They could have made the trilogy around his pursuit of Anakin, with perhaps the third movie having Skywalker defeat Maul and take his place at the side of the Emperor, this could have made for a much more compelling storyline. A missed opportunity, amongst a sea of missed opportunities - but perhaps this one could have saved the series.



This would have made great film trilogy.  The problem is George Lucas would likely dismiss it out of hand.


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## Le Panda du Mal (Aug 29, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> Discussing midichlorians, trade disputes etc. - and this was supposedly a film for kids to enjoy? Lucas really messed up big time. What probably annoyed me the most was when the 2 Jedi took on Darth  Maul; you aren't meant to have 2 good guys taking on 1 bad guy, no matter how adept he is. 2 bad guys taking on 1 good guy, yes - but not the other way around.



It happens all the time in kung fu movies, eg the films featuring the villain Bai Mei. This assumes though that the villain is that much superior to any one of the heroes alone.


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## Swank (Aug 30, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> And how its is that two Jedi masters together couldn't defeat him together and yet at the end Obi wan alone who is the least accomplished of the two defeats Maul.


Well, that's how you set up a hero, isn't it?


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## JunkMonkey (Aug 30, 2022)

Le Panda du Mal said:


> It happens all the time in kung fu movies, eg the films featuring the villain Bai Mei. This assumes though that the villain is that much superior to any one of the heroes alone.



I'll second that. I watched *Iron Monkey* last night and it took two heroes to defeat the villain.  Something to do with an eastern, communitarian co-operative mindset rather than the rugged, individualist, western one perhaps?


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## Rodders (Aug 30, 2022)

I'm one of the few that thinks that the PT is better than the ST. Sure, it has it's faults, but it told a relatively cohesive story from start to finish. I think the most important thing to remember is "It's not my Star Wars". Still, here's my two cents:

Lucasfilm is showing many of the mistakes that Lucasarts made prior to them folding. Too much indecision and second guessing made it impossible for them to move forward. There also seems to be a lot of disputes and Solo suffered for losing it's Director half way through.

The Skywalker story had been told and had a defined ending in RotJ. I don't see why Disney needed to pull at that thread. It also made for a very small universe. Rogue One has shown that there is room for all types of Star Wars stories. Personally, i'd like to see more of the seedy underbelly of the SW galaxy.

I didn't like the way the OT characters were killed off. But that's a personal thing.

The sequels suffered for not having a planned story arc and instead, Lucasfilm decided to allow the Directors to progress the story in a way they saw fit. TRoS didn't follow story leads given by TLJ and we were left with main characters just sidelined. Plot threads were just dropped. Characters i enjoyed throughout were just left without a role.

Disney appears to be trying to "outdo" Lucas's Original Trilogy. Liked the Cantina scene? Here's a bigger one! Redesigns of some of the old star ships didn't make a lot of sense. (Those half jet engine things on the X-Wing and the escape pod on the Millennium Falcon.) Bigger Star Destroyers with their own planet killing lasers. It gets boring quickly.

Many elements of the original trilogy were retconned (still not sure what that actually means). This was especially noticeable with Solo and elements of his back story. I still don't understand why.

The failure of the ST has made Disney look back at old characters, such as Boba Fett. Again, i feel this only serves to make the Star Wars Galaxy smaller and feels like a quick way to bring back the fans of the OT. It stinks of fan service. Besides, revealing too much about certain characters only serves to lessen the legend they carry. (I have to confess that I've yet to see The Book of Boba Fett.)

Disney bought Star Wars because they wanted to attract boys of a certain age to their brand. Politics took a hold but the whole "The Force is Female" stance didn't seem to go anywhere. I'm all for strong female leads but that seems kinda off message for me.

I'm also going to suggest that there were no, good villains. None! 

Still, there have been a few things that Disney has done well. Donald Glover's Lando Calrissian, The Mandalorian, Rogue One and Jedi: Fallen Order are all excellent Star Wars.


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## Vladd67 (Aug 30, 2022)




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## Harpo (Sep 24, 2022)




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## Swank (Sep 24, 2022)

Harpo said:


> View attachment 93471


Wait til he sees Dune.


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## JunkMonkey (Sep 25, 2022)

Harpo said:


> View attachment 93471



Very easily.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 25, 2022)

Harpo said:


> View attachment 93471



That's easy,  Mace is living incognito as  Nick Fury,  wanting for that whole  silly empire mess in the Star Wars Universe to  blow over.


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## smellincoffee (Oct 17, 2022)

I stopped watching the Disney trilogy halfway through and have refused to watch anything else by them, even though I know from friends that _The Mandalorian_ is far superior in quality to the utter trash starring Darth Emo and Mary Sue Palpatine.    I'm not into superhero movies as a rule (save for the Christian Bale Batman movies), so the only Marvel/Avengers stuff I've seen is the original movie, and the first _Iron Man_ and _Captain America_ titles.    They all seem the same to me, as do the new Trek movies -- just a stream of explosions, boring fights, and jokes.


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## BAYLOR (Oct 27, 2022)

smellincoffee said:


> I stopped watching the Disney trilogy halfway through and have refused to watch anything else by them, even though I know from friends that _The Mandalorian_ is far superior in quality to the utter trash starring Darth Emo and Mary Sue Palpatine.    I'm not into superhero movies as a rule (save for the Christian Bale Batman movies), so the only Marvel/Avengers stuff I've seen is the original movie, and the first _Iron Man_ and _Captain America_ titles.    They all seem the same to me, as do the new Trek movies -- just a stream of explosions, boring fights, and jokes.



 Darth Emo and Mary Sue Palpatine .  I can almost see a Wanda/Vision type tv show possibility there.


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## thaddeus6th (Oct 27, 2022)

Apparently there's a new trilogy in the works, a sequel to the sequel trilogy.

Also, JJ Abrams needs to be locked in a room and subjected to endless lectures until he understands that space is big.


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## BAYLOR (Oct 27, 2022)

thaddeus6th said:


> Apparently there's a new trilogy in the works, a sequel to the sequel trilogy.
> 
> Also, JJ Abrams needs to be locked in a room and subjected to endless lectures until he understands that space is big.



The Abrams films  do their flaws but,  they're still  way  better then the crumb bum prequels Lucas wrote  produced and  directed . And even better, there'd no Jar Jar Binks in the films


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## Vince W (Oct 27, 2022)

I'm grateful. It's saved me a lot of time and money by not needing to go to the cinema to watch either of these franchises.


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## Rodders (Oct 27, 2022)

Disney have done well where they've stayed away from the Skywalkers and the Solos. 

Star Wars was only ever Vader's story and it's been told. Move to other stories, other characters and other parts of the universe.


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## paranoid marvin (Oct 27, 2022)

Rodders said:


> Disney have done well where they've stayed away from the Skywalkers and the Solos.
> 
> Star Wars was only ever Vader's story and it's been told. Move to other stories, other characters and other parts of the universe.



In many respects, the prequels were Vader's story; how a young, impressionable Jedi can end up on the Dark Side of the Force. For the majority of the original 3 movies, Vader is little more than a henchman, and the story is about how Luke manages to avoid the traps his father fell into, and become a 'true' Jedi knight.

I think that Disney were hampered to some extent by the sequels (VII, VIII and IX) in that they were writing stories in a 'known' universe. Also they had to (in some way) make up to the fans for the prequels, by reintroducing known characters and making Star Wars 'Star Wars' again. Personally I think they could have wrapped up the arcs of all of the original characters in VII, whilst introducing new characters that could have played out VIII and IX.

The prequels just didn't feel like Star Wars movies. At all. They had all the right characters and locations - but the magic simply wasn't there. Poor scripts, poor acting, poor storylines and stuff that just didn't make any sense. This wasn't the franchise we were looking for. Force Awakens - whilst it wasn't perfect - at least felt like a Star Wars movie; and not just because we had the same actors and the Falcon. I didn't come out of the cinema feeling gutted like I had with Phantom Menace.

I totally agree that when the story isn't hampered by Solos and Skywalkers, Disney have thrived in their inventiveness and vision for Star Wars. Rogue One I rate as highly as Empire Strikes Back, and whilst other attempts haven't always been as successful, it's always felt that their heart is in the right place, and they've at least _tried. _The prequels didn't feel like this at all, more like an expectation we _should _and _ought _to like it just because it had 'Star Wars' on the label. Things don't work that way


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## Rodders (Oct 28, 2022)

Disney allowed themselves to be side tracked quite a lot from their core mission, which i believe was to bring over boys of a certain age group toward the Disney group. As the new trilogy progressed, i think they didn't actually understand what they wanted at all. 

The whole "The Force is Female" thing they went through took them in the opposite way to their original intention. I also think that the use of "fan service" to win over older fans is a cheap trick and i personally felt almost like i was being played.


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## Toby Frost (Oct 28, 2022)

Rodders said:


> The failure of the ST has made Disney look back at old characters, such as Boba Fett. Again, i feel this only serves to make the Star Wars Galaxy smaller and feels like a quick way to bring back the fans of the OT.



I completely agree and I would not recommend The Book of Boba Fett, which was a mess. The Mandalorian, on the other hand, is very good. To me, Disney does well where: (i) it doesn't feel obliged to include too many references to existing characters; (ii) it's comparatively "grown up", ie has some level of nuance, and isn't downright silly; and (iii) it stays away from the Skywalker family. That doesn't preclude it from making family-friendly magic space adventure - it's just got to do it well. A lot of the Force-related stuff just feels silly now. The Last Jedi jumped some very big sharks.

They can put as many women in as they like, as far as I'm concerned, so long as the stories are of good quality (which includes not being preachy for what it's worth). If there is politics there, it has been introduced by bad people for disingenuous ends that have nothing to do with Star Wars (as with all of this fake controversy, which is ultimately just about taking power). I like the idea of such people being sad.


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## Rodders (Oct 28, 2022)

I feel that the choices for the TV series have been made to woo fans of the OT. Even the Mandalorian is set shortly after RoTJ. I... don't actually have a problem with this. 

On a more positive angle, what do Chrons members think Disney have done well with the franchise?


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## Toby Frost (Oct 28, 2022)

One thing I really liked about The Mandalorian was the way that they'd incorporated Western elements without it becoming too obvious. Likewise Rogue One and even a few bits of Boba Fett felt like different stories but set in the same world. I think it shows that the Star Wars setting can do new and interesting things and stay true to its setting.

And it's good at the "sci-fi" stuff: the spaceships, effects, shoot-outs and the like are really good. The sense of space adventure is great.


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## BAYLOR (Oct 28, 2022)

Toby Frost said:


> One thing I really liked about The Mandalorian was the way that they'd incorporated Western elements without it becoming too obvious. Likewise Rogue One and even a few bits of Boba Fett felt like different stories but set in the same world. I think it shows that the Star Wars setting can do new and interesting things and stay true to its setting.
> 
> And it's good at the "sci-fi" stuff: the spaceships, effects, shoot-outs and the like are really good. The sense of space adventure is great.



Id like to see them do* Knights of the Old Republic*.  That for me  would make a great tv series .


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## Rodders (Oct 28, 2022)

I've only seen the first series of the Mandalorian and i adore the Cowboy vibe to it. Even the music was more influenced by the old westerns of the 70's more than John Williams's soundtrack, i thought.

The Star Wars aesthetic has always been done well, even in the ST.


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## Swank (Oct 29, 2022)

Rodders said:


> The Star Wars aesthetic has always been done well, even in the ST.


I think the aesthetics are a major failing of Disney stuff. The ships are largely derivative of 40 year old designs, adding nonsense features like red windows or bigger nacelles. The scale of the small ships has been changed to make them better toys - the Rogue One ship is way too small for its capacity when you compare its size to the Falcon or Imperial shuttle.

The locations of the OT films were wonderfully exotic - the spectacular Mayan temple in SW was replaced by the world's cheapest location in Force Awakens - RAF bunkers. In general, JJ Abrams films look cheap. The Enterprise's engine room looked like it was in a square warehouse - because it was.

And the costumes were utterly unispiring. Luke, Leia, Han, Darth, Lando,  Stormtroopers, Chewie, Fett and Ben's outfits were incredibly iconic. Does anyone even remember being taken with any new movies' costumes? All I remember is Forest Whitaker's crummy bionics and how big Po's head looks. 



Ooooooh; a silver stormtrooper.


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## thaddeus6th (Oct 29, 2022)

Baylor, I must disagree.

Yes, Jar Jar is annoying. And the prequels have their problems. But the sequel trilogy* is a dissonant mess of disconnected films. The prequel trilogy fails sometimes on execution but the ideas are sound. The sequel fails all around. Too much mystery box nonsense "A good question, for another time". Sure, you're hanging a lantern on the fact you have no explanation for how item X got to location Y but that doesn't remove the problem of it making no sense. 

That's before we get to the destruction of the most hopeful character in the series. Or the idiocy of needing a middle map piece. If I need to get from Glasgow to London but my map has the centre of England missing, am I really unable to find London? No, because I'm not a moron. If you know the place where the character is you know where he is! You don't need every solar system in between. Humbug.

*Disclaimer: I have not seen episode IX. Only watched VIII because my uncle died and he had it on DVD.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 16, 2022)

thaddeus6th said:


> Baylor, I must disagree.
> 
> Yes, Jar Jar is annoying. And the prequels have their problems. But the sequel trilogy* is a dissonant mess of disconnected films. The prequel trilogy fails sometimes on execution but the ideas are sound. The sequel fails all around. Too much mystery box nonsense "A good question, for another time". Sure, you're hanging a lantern on the fact you have no explanation for how item X got to location Y but that doesn't remove the problem of it making no sense.
> 
> ...



Jar jar wasn't the only issue with the prequels. Add to to a that such idiocy as the Middichlorine gene   explanation of the force , which  should have left a mystery  How is that  Yoda and all the so called powerful  Jedi Masters have not so much as a  clue that Palaptine was the the Sith Lord ?   And then the the fact  that Master  Qui Gon and  Obiwan  two Jedi Master had to both had some trouble defeating  Sith Apprentice Darth Maul? Rubbish , all of it.

Yes , the the Abraham films were far from perfect   but they were at least better then the cinema cow piles   that Lucas gave us .


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 16, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> Jar jar wasn't the only issue with the prequels. Add to to a that such idiocy as the Middichlorine gene   explanation of the force , which  should have left a mystery  How is that  Yoda and all the so called powerful  Jedi Masters have not so much as a  clue that Palaptine was the the Sith Lord ?   And then the the fact  that Master  Qui Gon and  Obiwan  two Jedi Master had to both had some trouble defeating  Sith Apprentice Darth Maul? Rubbish , all of it.
> 
> Yes , the the Abraham film were far from perfect   but they at least better then the cinema cow piles   that Lucas gave us .



I've no issues with Jar Jar. In fact I've no issues with stuff not making sense when you really think about it, because the same is true in most films. It's usually best to buy into what the movie is telling you, and enjoy the ride.

I was annoyed with the (relatively) poor acting and terrible scripts - forgivable in a novice director and/or actors finding their feet, but not when so much money and experience is involved. 

What I most disagree with are the plots and subplots. Introducing a trade embargo does _not _make it a family-friendly film - quite the reverse. I had trouble understanding exactly what was going on, so I'm not sure what a 6 or 7 year old will make of it. And midi-chlorians; the 'Force' was really something magical and special in the original trilogy; here it's dissected and explained away in scientific terms - why would you even want to do that?


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## CupofJoe (Dec 16, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> I've no issues with Jar Jar. In fact I've no issues with stuff not making sense when you really think about it, because the same is true in most films. It's usually best to buy into what the movie is telling you, and enjoy the ride.
> 
> I was annoyed with the (relatively) poor acting and terrible scripts - forgivable in a novice director and/or actors finding their feet, but not when so much money and experience is involved.
> 
> What I most disagree with are the plots and subplots. Introducing a trade embargo does _not _make it a family-friendly film - quite the reverse. I had trouble understanding exactly what was going on, so I'm not sure what a 6 or 7 year old will make of it. And midi-chlorians; the 'Force' was really something magical and special in the original trilogy; here it's dissected and explained away in scientific terms - why would you even want to do that?


I have [distant] relatives that didn't let their children watch the original Star Wars trilogy as they were apparently Satanic and anti-Christian [the films, not the parents].
The midi-chlorians did make "The Force" biological and not mystical.


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## Toby Frost (Dec 16, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> here it's dissected and explained away in scientific terms - why would you even want to do that?



The whole blood thing does sound just a teeny bit fascist. I'm sure it could have been explained better.


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## Vince W (Dec 16, 2022)

Faerie farts would have been a better explanation.


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## J.D.Rajotte (Dec 16, 2022)

I feel like Disney's past ventures with Marvel movies have been a slam dunk, the writing and story progression seemed to be pretty enjoyable. Unfortunately a lot of their new stuff seems to fall a little flat IMO. I feel like the main series Star Wars trilogy that they did was really poor, the first one seemed alright but oh God those last two. But they also seem to have struck gold with The Mandolorian, and that new Andor series shows promise so I feel there's a new hope there.


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 16, 2022)

I think that Obi Wan Kenobi explained it best:

_"The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together."_

It sounds far more like a natural phenomenon than a mystical entity, or something in our blood - like (for example) gravity. The thing is we don't need to know _how _it works, we just need to know that it does and what it can do.


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 16, 2022)

J.D.Rajotte said:


> I feel like Disney's past ventures with Marvel movies have been a slam dunk, the writing and story progression seemed to be pretty enjoyable. Unfortunately a lot of their new stuff seems to fall a little flat IMO. I feel like the main series Star Wars trilogy that they did was really poor, the first one seemed alright but oh God those last two. But they also seem to have struck gold with The Mandolorian, and that new Andor series shows promise so I feel there's a new hope there.




The prequels showed how to really mess up Star Wars big time. Whilst the sequels weren't the films many fans were looking for, at least they weren't handled as badly. 

The best way to deal with the prequels and the sequels would be simply not to have made them. Having said that, I still class Rogue One as up there with ESB for the greatest Star Wars movie.


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## Rodders (Dec 16, 2022)

I'm generally quite cynical, but they have done some things right, though. Andor, The Mandalorian and Rogue One are pretty well regarded, aren't they?

I am looking forward to Disney's next movie and feel it's a shame that they aren't going ahead with the Rogue Squadron movie.


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 16, 2022)

I think the best thing that Disney did was to take it out of the hands of George Lucas. Regardless of prequels/sequels, he was redefining the original characters and constant tinkering was making the original films something they weren't. Regardless of the changing of Han Solo's character, the notion to include an incredibly poor CGI Jabba the Hutt was quite frankly bizarre. Here was a guy who 30 years earlier had created Star Destroyers, Death Stars, and men inside costumes pretending to be androids/aliens, and they were done so well and so convincingly that we didn't question their reality. How can the same guy who did that do the 'Jabba' scene in the original movie?

We can only hope that at some point in the future Disney will realise that there is a substantial amount of money in putting out the original trilogy as they were shown in the cinema back in the day, perhaps with cleaned up images and Dolby sound. Look at what Sony did for the 50th anniversary of Lawrence of Arabia; created a stunning (and I mean stunning) 4k restoration of the original movie which made it look like it had just been filmed yesterday and not back in 1962. I'm even betting that there's money to be made in putting the original trilogy back on at the cinema, where it deserves to be experienced.

Only 4.5 years now to it's 50th milestone, so here's hoping...


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## KGeo777 (Dec 16, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> . Here was a guy who 30 years earlier had created Star Destroyers, Death Stars, and men inside costumes pretending to be androids/aliens, and they were done so well and so convincingly that we didn't question their reality. How can the same guy who did that do the 'Jabba' scene in the original movie?


Because it wasn't the same guy. John Dykstra and Ralph McQuarrie did much of the design work for Star Wars. Lucas was more of a creative manager if we are looking at from a vantage point that examines it in context. Gary Kurtz also had influence on story decisions.
I don't think Lucas really wanted to make Star Wars--I think he was hired to do an FX-oriented film for FOX based on something B-movie related and they decided on Prince Valiant (which had been a FOX film). Lucas appears to have been unenthusiastic to do it--it was a lark to some extent, and he was more interested in the money to be generated in merchandise and theater technology.

We aren't given the real story on these things.
Indiana Jones is the Harry Steele character from Secret of the Incas, given a whip and a more humorous persona. It was a Paramount film too.
That is how the character was created. All the other stuff has to be BS. Has to be. Why would they do all sorts of alleged creative brainstorming sessions and in the end just remake a studio film?
Even the Tom Selleck screen test is weird because  Harrison Ford is a deadringer for Charlton Heston in some scenes--maybe it didn't seem so obvious when they were planning it.
Back then technological innovation in FX and stunts etc was the superstar --and then after CGI came along, the brand became the focus.
 None of the actors really matter--it is the brand.
The Star Wars Brand
The Indiana Jones brand
The Willow brand.

The Willow brand??

Is there a demand for the Willow brand?
I am not aware of any.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 17, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> Because it wasn't the same guy. John Dykstra and Ralph McQuarrie did much of the design work for Star Wars. Lucas was more of a creative manager if we are looking at from a vantage point that examines it in context. Gary Kurtz also had influence on story decisions.
> I don't think Lucas really wanted to make Star Wars--I think he was hired to do an FX-oriented film for FOX based on something B-movie related and they decided on Prince Valiant (which had been a FOX film). Lucas appears to have been unenthusiastic to do it--it was a lark to some extent, and he was more interested in the money to be generated in merchandise and theater technology.
> 
> We aren't given the real story on these things.
> ...



One of the props  from Secret of the Incas made it into Raider of the Lost Ark. You can see it in the early scene when they entering the temple to get the Golden Idol.


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## Swank (Dec 17, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> Because it wasn't the same guy. John Dykstra and Ralph McQuarrie did much of the design work for Star Wars. Lucas was more of a creative manager if we are looking at from a vantage point that examines it in context. Gary Kurtz also had influence on story decisions.
> I don't think Lucas really wanted to make Star Wars--I think he was hired to do an FX-oriented film for FOX based on something B-movie related and they decided on Prince Valiant (which had been a FOX film). Lucas appears to have been unenthusiastic to do it--it was a lark to some extent, and he was more interested in the money to be generated in merchandise and theater technology.
> 
> We aren't given the real story on these things.
> ...


I've been saying the same thing for years - SW was a composite of the talents of many artists. Lucas wanted to make Flash Gordon - a story about a guy from earth. Instead he ended up with humans seemingly divorced from any connection to earth. The alien design of fast moving doors, no-railing precipices and matter of fact violence comes from the way sets and stunts were designed as much as scripting.


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## paeng (Dec 17, 2022)

I think they're affected in the same way as many companies that need investor funds from Blackrock and others, i.e., they have to maintain their ESG scores by promoting diversity, etc. That means revising content that may eventually anger viewers, and lead to poor sales.

However, I also believe that at some point asset managers will realize the irrationality of some score criteria and will come up with better measurements for investment performance. In the case of media, that will mean the use of focus groups, which will allow them to understand the sentiments of their viewers.

Even outside that I think such franchises don't have much to offer that's new, and if there's a lot of pressure to develop new projects yearly, they will only end up releasing more of the same. That's why the recent _Star Wars_ movies essentially borrowed from the previous ones (e.g., Death Stars, urchins on desert planets, guidance from elder ones, etc.). It's similar to what happened in other franchises, e.g., protagonists who look like Ripley, the main story line of _Mad Max 2_ essentially rehashed for the new one, etc.

Add to this the use of not only CGI but even virtual sets, Deepfake technology, impressionists, and so on, and one can essentially make movies using computers and faces of celebrities. Just follow the rules for tent-pole flicks: make the movie as long as possible to justify high ticket prices, use lots of spectacle (essentially images using computers) to make it look expensive and artistic, keep the plot and character development simple so that audiences across many cultures and languages can understand the film (and that's important in order to cover high marketing costs), just use enough sex and violence to tittilate audiences but try not to go outside the PG sweet spot (in order to get teens), use teenage slang and behavior for the same reasons, and so on.

Of course, there's the risk that at some point, viewers will realize that all Marvel and _Star Wars_ movies and even TV shows look basically the same, and will either wait for the movies to come out on streaming, free streaming, or even bargain bins, or subscribe to streaming to binge-watch and then unsubscribe.


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## paeng (Dec 17, 2022)

About that reference to Selleck, I'm reminded of this old but funny mashup:






Maybe they can spice things up for new shows, and mix them with some humor. For example, _Andor_? (Warning: spoilers)


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## Swank (Dec 17, 2022)

paeng said:


> I think they're affected in the same way as many companies that need investor funds from Blackrock and others, i.e., they have to maintain their ESG scores by promoting diversity, etc. That means revising content that may eventually anger viewers, and lead to poor sales.
> 
> However, I also believe that at some point asset managers will realize the irrationality of some score criteria and will come up with better measurements for investment performance. In the case of media, that will mean the use of focus groups, which will allow them to understand the sentiments of their viewers.


Do you think it is that hard to have diverse casts that it always looks artificial or insincere?

Most of the bad casting choices I've seen aren't because someone is the wrong demographic, but just the wrong actor.


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 17, 2022)

KGeo777 said:


> Because it wasn't the same guy. John Dykstra and Ralph McQuarrie did much of the design work for Star Wars. Lucas was more of a creative manager if we are looking at from a vantage point that examines it in context. Gary Kurtz also had influence on story decisions.
> I don't think Lucas really wanted to make Star Wars--I think he was hired to do an FX-oriented film for FOX based on something B-movie related and they decided on Prince Valiant (which had been a FOX film). Lucas appears to have been unenthusiastic to do it--it was a lark to some extent, and he was more interested in the money to be generated in merchandise and theater technology.
> 
> We aren't given the real story on these things.
> ...



Sorry, I didn't mean that Lucas necessarily came up with the designs or the concept, but that it was his movie. He is credited with being director and writer, and it was produced by his company Lucasfilm. So for me that makes it his film, and the buck stops with him. Both for the good things (original trilogy) and the bad (prequels). I also think that all the tinkering and re-editing (in some ways re-conceptualising) of the original trilogy was down to him. Has any movie been so fundamentally changed to make them _worse_ movies? 

I agree that there doesn't seem to have been a great deal of optimism for 'Star Wars' and that one of the primary concerns was to create a vehicle off which to make tons of cash in the merchandising. In this respect Lucas was way ahead of his time.


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## paeng (Dec 18, 2022)

Swank said:


> Do you think it is that hard to have diverse casts that it always looks artificial or insincere?
> 
> Most of the bad casting choices I've seen aren't because someone is the wrong demographic, but just the wrong actor.



I think the problem involves not actors but writing.


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## Swank (Dec 18, 2022)

paeng said:


> I think the problem involves not actors but writing.


You can't write someone more attractive.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 18, 2022)

Swank said:


> You can't write someone more attractive.



Nowadays , they can do anything with special effects and de aging


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 18, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> Nowadays , they can do anything with special effects and de aging




Which I'm sure we'll see more of in the coming years. The 'de-aging' in the excellent 'The Irishman' is just a taster of what is to come, even though that was done quite poorly. in Rogue One we saw a (relatively)  good recreation of Tarkin (helped by the dark shadows of that scene) , whilst Leia looked a bit weird (probably because she could be seen much more clearly). But as time, technology and practice improve, so will what is achievable. 

What I think we are also likely to see, with the improvement of technology, are recreations of some of the late stars of Hollywood. Fancy going to see Bogey in a new detective thriller, or Kirk Douglas or Charlton Heston in a new blockbuster? Maybe even in the music industry with a holographic Elvis? I can well see actors living today agreeing to sell their digital rights away, so that not only does their fame go on for eternity, their descendants will always be taken care of.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 18, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> Which I'm sure we'll see more of in the coming years. The 'de-aging' in the excellent 'The Irishman' is just a taster of what is to come, even though that was done quite poorly. in Rogue One we saw a (relatively)  good recreation of Tarkin (helped by the dark shadows of that scene) , whilst Leia looked a bit weird (probably because she could be seen much more clearly). But as time, technology and practice improve, so will what is achievable.
> 
> What I think we are also likely to see, with the improvement of technology, are recreations of some of the late stars of Hollywood. Fancy going to see Bogey in a new detective thriller, or Kirk Douglas or Charlton Heston in a new blockbuster? Maybe even in the music industry with a holographic Elvis? I can well see actors living today agreeing to sell their digital rights away, so that not only does their fame go on for eternity, their descendants will always be taken care of.



Id like to see a film with John Wayne  and Charlton  Heston together which almost happened with the film The Alamo Or,  Wayne and Gary Cooper in their career they were never in any  film together.


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 18, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> Id like to see a film with John Wayne  and Charlton  Heston together which almost happened with the film The Alamo Or,  Wayne and Gary Cooper in their career they were never in any  film together.




John Wayne is another good example of a Hollywood star who - given time - could accurately be recreated in a movie. 

From a production company's point of view it makes perfect sense. Actors who always turn up on time, never fluff their lines, aren't high maintenance, and don't need stunt doubles. I wonder what Peter Cushing would have thought about being 'resurrected' to appear in Rogue One?


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## BAYLOR (Dec 18, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> John Wayne is another good example of a Hollywood star who - given time - could accurately be recreated in a movie.
> 
> From a production company's point of view it makes perfect sense. Actors who always turn up on time, never fluff their lines, aren't high maintenance, and don't need stunt doubles. I wonder what Peter Cushing would have thought about being 'resurrected' to appear in Rogue One?



I think Peter Cushing would've  been  flattered to have gotten an extend presence  in the  Star Wars universe.


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## Vince W (Dec 18, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> I think Peter Cushing would've  been  flattered to have gotten an extend presence  in the  Star Wars universe.


Given Peter Cushing's extensive work in occult type films are we quite certain that it _wasn't_ Peter Cushing.


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 18, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> I think Peter Cushing would've  been  flattered to have gotten an extend presence  in the  Star Wars universe.



Although his face is a little CGI'd, the voice is spot on. I think I would have preferred it though if he had kept his back to the screen, and that we had just seen his face reflected in the glass. Also there must surely have been some edits/cuts from the orinal movie that could have been used instead. 

But I think that we were being treated here, and with movies like 'The Irishman' as a glimpse of what will - not may - come. Which in some respect is a shame for the would-be acting stars of the future. Easier, cheaper and potentially much more lucrative to use 'known' stars rather than budding actors.


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 18, 2022)

Vince W said:


> Given Peter Cushing's extensive work in occult type films are we quite certain that it _wasn't_ Peter Cushing.




When I first watched it at the movies, I had to double take. I knew nothing about the film before going to watch it, so had no idea they were using CGI to recreate his image. My first thought was 'that's a perfect double' to 'what a great piece of editing' to final realisation it was computer generated. Given the scene was brief and in relative darkness , it was still mighty impressive for a technology still in its infancy.


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## Vince W (Dec 18, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> When I first watched it at the movies, I had to double take. I knew nothing about the film before going to watch it, so had no idea they were using CGI to recreate his image. My first thought was 'that's a perfect double' to 'what a great piece of editing' to final realisation it was computer generated. Given the scene was brief and in relative darkness , it was still mighty impressive for a technology still in its infancy.


Wait until the porn industry takes ahold of it.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 18, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> When I first watched it at the movies, I had to double take. I knew nothing about the film before going to watch it, so had no idea they were using CGI to recreate his image. My first thought was 'that's a perfect double' to 'what a great piece of editing' to final realisation it was computer generated. Given the scene was brief and in relative darkness , it was still mighty impressive for a technology still in its infancy.



 It was good to see Peter Cushing onscreen again.


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## Vladd67 (Dec 18, 2022)

Vince W said:


> Wait until the porn industry takes ahold of it.


Now there's a law suit waiting to happen.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 18, 2022)

Vladd67 said:


> Now there's a law suit waiting to happen.



The resulting legal tangle will be of Biblical proportions.


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 18, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> It was good to see Peter Cushing onscreen again.




He was in a lot of B and C rated movies, but always treated them seriously and gave an A rated performance.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 18, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> He was in a lot of B and C rated movies, but always treated them seriously and gave an A rated performance.



He was a terrific actor , one of the very best.


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## paeng (Dec 19, 2022)

Swank said:


> You can't write someone more attractive.


It has nothing to do with being attractive but with lines in dialogue that express character.


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## Swank (Dec 19, 2022)

paeng said:


> It has nothing to do with being attractive but with lines in dialogue that express character.


I think some of the people that get beat up by racist trolls are just being picked on because they don't fulfill the expectation of the attractive and confident central character. Unfortunately, when there is a poor casting choice the nice people say nothing and the kind of people that are also racists feel most comfortable critiquing an actor's looks.

I feel that many of the actors cast for the final trilogy of SW films did not meet the standard of the SW universe set by Ford, Williams, Hammill and Fisher. Even the supporting actors in the originals tended to be nice looking.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 19, 2022)

Swank said:


> I think some of the people that get beat up by racist trolls are just being picked on because they don't fulfill the expectation of the attractive and confident central character. Unfortunately, when there is a poor casting choice the nice people say nothing and the kind of people that are also racists feel most comfortable critiquing an actor's looks.
> 
> I feel that many of the actors cast for the final trilogy of SW films did not meet the standard of the SW universe set by Ford, Williams, Hammill and Fisher. Even the supporting actors in the originals tended to be nice looking.



I didn't find Jabba the Hutt to be particularly attractive.


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## Swank (Dec 19, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> I didn't find Jabba the Hutt to be particularly attractive.


What actor played Jabba?


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## Rodders (Dec 19, 2022)

I'm lost on the thread on the attractiveness of the cast.

One of my major gripes with the Sequel Trilogy. You had all these characters written in and then... nothing. They were completely forgotten about. 

I foolishly thought that Finn was going to be a major character in the ST. Likable actor, likable character and then as Rise of Skywalker came around, he was just a bit part without a satisfactory arc. Disney lost a lot by not having a story fleshed out for the three (then two) Directors to follow and the who thing became a mess.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 19, 2022)

Swank said:


> What actor played Jabba?



Jabba was a puppet


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 19, 2022)

Rodders said:


> I'm lost on the thread on the attractiveness of the cast.
> 
> One of my major gripes with the Sequel Trilogy. You had all these characters written in and then... nothing. They were completely forgotten about.
> 
> I foolishly thought that Finn was going to be a major character in the ST. Likable actor, likable character and then as Rise of Skywalker came around, he was just a bit part without a satisfactory arc. Disney lost a lot by not having a story fleshed out for the three (then two) Directors to follow and the who thing became a mess.




Yes I too am a bit lost with the 'attractiveness'. Are we just talking about likable/dislikable characters?

I totally agree about Finn though. In the whole 10 movies, his is one of the most interesting characters. Here we have a stormtrooper who refuses to carry out orders he doesn't think are morally right. This is quite a shock to the viewer, when previously we have seen the Empire's soldiers as little more than automatons. A missed opportunity, and such a waste of a character and fine actor. The same happened with Darth Maul.


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 19, 2022)

Swank said:


> You can't write someone more attractive.




I think it depends on what you class as 'attractive'. Cosmetically you can alter a person's features, character-wise you can alter what they do/say  to make them look more appealing to the audience.

A good example of an audience's perception of a character being completely turned around by writing is Sloth in The Goonies.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 19, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> Yes I too am a bit lost with the 'attractiveness'. Are we just talking about likable/dislikable characters?
> 
> I totally agree about Finn though. In the whole 10 movies, his is one of the most interesting characters. Here we have a stormtrooper who refuses to carry out orders he doesn't think are morally right. This is quite a shock to the viewer, when previously we have seen the Empire's soldiers as little more than automatons. A missed opportunity, and such a waste of a character and fine actor. The same happened with Darth Maul.



I liked Finn and was not happy with what they did with his character

As for Darth Maul , he should have been one of  the principle antagonists throughout  the prequel  trilogy . He should have been what really turned Anakin to the Dark side of the force not no much Palatine. This would have made the films far better.


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 19, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> I liked Finn and was not happy with what they did with his character
> 
> As for Darth Maul , he should have been one of  the principle antagonists throughout  the prequel  trilogy . He should have been the what really turned Anakin to the Dark side of the force not no much Palatine. This would have made the film far better.




Yes, he was a missed opportunity. A really well thought out antagonist, who looked really cool and had some great moves. If he had been the constant villain pursuing Anakin through the prequels it would have made for a much better story, with Anakin defeating Maul in the final movie to take his place at the Emperor's side.

I went to a convention when the chap who played Maul was present, he was a real cool guy.


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## Swank (Dec 19, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> Jabba was a puppet


Right. So my post about attractive people and casting have nothing to do with puppets.



Rodders said:


> I'm lost on the thread on the attractiveness of the cast.
> 
> One of my major gripes with the Sequel Trilogy. You had all these characters written in and then... nothing. They were completely forgotten about.
> 
> I foolishly thought that Finn was going to be a major character in the ST. Likable actor, likable character and then as Rise of Skywalker came around, he was just a bit part without a satisfactory arc. Disney lost a lot by not having a story fleshed out for the three (then two) Directors to follow and the who thing became a mess.


I was replying to Paeng's assertion that diversity was a problem for these films. I don't think the 'race' of the characters was what even the racists were initially reacting to. I just don't think they cast actors that looked right for the legacy of the parts they were playing, and I would include Finn in that. His expression was never confident - people in SW aren't supposed to look stressed/scared all the time. And that isn't just acting - that actor always seems to look upset.

Despite the new filmmakers all being fans of SW, none of them seem to understand that part of the power the OT had was that the people in SW were not like us. They move through life in a different way, and that's why those films were so immersive - the audience is never burdened with the insecurities and phobias of contemporary humans. If JJ Abrams had directed SW, Luke would have had a scene breathing into a paper bag before putting on his Stormtrooper disguise and Leia would have PTSD for the rest of the films after her interrogations.


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## paeng (Dec 20, 2022)

Swank said:


> I think some of the people that get beat up by racist trolls are just being picked on because they don't fulfill the expectation of the attractive and confident central character. Unfortunately, when there is a poor casting choice the nice people say nothing and the kind of people that are also racists feel most comfortable critiquing an actor's looks.
> 
> I feel that many of the actors cast for the final trilogy of SW films did not meet the standard of the SW universe set by Ford, Williams, Hammill and Fisher. Even the supporting actors in the originals tended to be nice looking.



I think the problem with the final trilogy was the writing, e.g., the first one movie basically rehashed the main storylines of previous ones.

For actors, I think there was no miscasting but their parts were badly written. For example, what should have been funny one-liners from Finn fall flat, Rey is not made to struggle and ends up becoming a Mary Sue, Kylo's first reveal led to laughter from audiences, Luke is made to do all sorts of absurd things he ends up looking ridiculous, Holdo ends up acting like a martinet, Solo ends up being a second banana and irrelevant, Leia's character development is shallow, and so on.

I think it's due to combinations of problems: attempting to tell instead of showing, pushing instead of being subtle, cramming too much content such that there's lack of character development overall and thus little sympathy from audiences, trying to sound important and sophisticated but ending up stilted, and then doing the opposite in order to get a reaction from younger views but failing due to problems with timing, etc.

No amount of getting the best actors, adding more spectacle, marketing the movie heavily, etc., can reverse that. What's even more tragic is that it involves the cheapest resource in film production: just paper, pencil, and more than enough time to write well.

But it might not be as simple as that if producers meddle, and that can undo even the best-written scripts.


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## paeng (Dec 20, 2022)

Swank said:


> Right. So my post about attractive people and casting have nothing to do with puppets.
> 
> 
> I was replying to Paeng's assertion that diversity was a problem for these films. I don't think the 'race' of the characters was what even the racists were initially reacting to. I just don't think they cast actors that looked right for the legacy of the parts they were playing, and I would include Finn in that. His expression was never confident - people in SW aren't supposed to look stressed/scared all the time. And that isn't just acting - that actor always seems to look upset.
> ...



The problem isn't diversity but the belief that diversity or the opposite or anything else can make up for bad writing.

They can come up with an all-white or all-black cast consisting of the most attractive and best actors in the world, and the movies will still fail.


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## Swank (Dec 20, 2022)

paeng said:


> The problem isn't diversity but the belief that diversity or the opposite or anything else can make up for bad writing.
> 
> They can come up with an all-white or all-black cast consisting of the most attractive and best actors in the world, and the movies will still fail.


Those movies don't suffer from a single problem. They are badly conceived all the way around.

My point about the racist reaction to the films would not have changed with different writing. Some of those actors don't fit the heroic mold of the previous films. Different actors of the same nationalities would have stirred much less trolling.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 20, 2022)

Swank said:


> Those movies don't suffer from a single problem. They are badly conceived all the way around.
> 
> My point about the racist reaction to the films would not have changed with different writing. Some of those actors don't fit the heroic mold of the previous films. Different actors of the same nationalities would have stirred much less trolling.





paeng said:


> The problem isn't diversity but the belief that diversity or the opposite or anything else can make up for bad writing.
> 
> They can come up with an all-white or all-black cast consisting of the most attractive and best actors in the world, and the movies will still fail.



We need to avoid  politics otherwise this thread topic is going to end up being locked .


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 20, 2022)

One thing I did think that Disney did well was to bring the main characters from the original movies back into the fold without making the story all about them. It would have been much easier to make the sequels 'the further adventures of Han, Leia, Luke etc' but instead they chose to integrate them whilst focussing on the new actors and new characters. 

For all of their faults, Disney were hampered to some extent by having to compete with three of the most iconic movies of all time. I can't see how, whatever they did, they could have satisfied both new fans and old. The prequels are unquestionably poor movies, with terrible dialogue, wooden acting and poor scripting and writing. I think the best thing you can say about the sequels is that they aren't as bad as the prequels.

 Personally I think that Disney were glad to get the weight lifted from around their necks by getting the sequels done and dusted and then they could move on to stuff that would give them more flexibility in writing and (to some extent) less criticism from fans of the original trilogy. At the box office the movies made back 4 times what they cost to make, so not a complete disaster for Disney.


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## Swank (Dec 20, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> I can't see how, whatever they did, they could have satisfied both new fans and old.


By making good films. Old fans don't require fan service just to like something. They want to feel something like what the original felt, not watch two hours of Easter Eggs.

The characters didn't act like the original characters. They acted like children.
The universe didn't function like the original universe.


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## Toby Frost (Dec 20, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> For all of their faults, Disney were hampered to some extent by having to compete with three of the most iconic movies of all time. I can't see how, whatever they did, they could have satisfied both new fans and old.



I agree. It's impossible to produce something that's the same and yet different and very high quality, and also which replicates the experience of seeing the originals. For quite a lot of fans, it seems that the experience of first seeing the original films was very strong, a little like the experience some people clearly had reading _The Lord of the Rings_ for the first time. I'm not sure if that can be replicated, particularly in the internet age. Disney was wise to strike off in new directions, although some of the results could have been better.


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## Swank (Dec 20, 2022)

I


Toby Frost said:


> I agree. It's impossible to produce something that's the same and yet different and very high quality, and also which replicates the experience of seeing the originals. For quite a lot of fans, it seems that the experience of first seeing the original films was very strong, a little like the experience some people clearly had reading _The Lord of the Rings_ for the first time. I'm not sure if that can be replicated, particularly in the internet age. Disney was wise to strike off in new directions, although some of the results could have been better.


 I don't agree, because modern super spy films like the Daniel Craig 007, Bourne and last several Mission Impossible films are almost equally satisfying. Yet they are different stories and characters, despite existing in a very similar universe of super bad guys and absurd action. They could easily be related stories from the same universe.

Star Wars was successful because the AV aesthetic and character aesthetic was so immersive. Pleasant, fearless and highly capable people fighting the good fight in an attractively dangerous galaxy. NO ONE has even tried to put that kind of story back on screen. The prequels had a few Jedi that acted the part, but the rest was was just silly. And the last trilogy had almost nothing that felt like the OT.


It's just like the Tron sequel. The thing that everyone loved about the original is how the computer world felt, yet the sequel looks like The Matrix.


It's just incompetence, not a functional inability to fashion a similar product.


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## paeng (Dec 21, 2022)

Swank said:


> Those movies don't suffer from a single problem. They are badly conceived all the way around.
> 
> My point about the racist reaction to the films would not have changed with different writing. Some of those actors don't fit the heroic mold of the previous films. Different actors of the same nationalities would have stirred much less trolling.



That's certain, but I think the biggest problem's in the writing. That's why even if you get actors that fit that mold and of the same nationalities the films would still be awful.


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## paeng (Dec 21, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> We need to avoid  politics otherwise this thread topic is going to end up being locked .



The films are bad because the writing's bad: any humorous remarks fall flat, reveals are awkward, main storylines are rehashed, protagonists experience little internal conflict, and older actors are made banal or turned into caricatures. Change the actors and the results will be the same.


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## paeng (Dec 21, 2022)

The first trilogy appeared during the start of the blockbusters, which is why they involved a lot of spectacle, and borrowed from older war, sci-fi, pirate, and samurai flicks. But development time was leisurely, so they had enough time to write properly, and followed Campbell. But because the target audience essentially consists of children, they had to make the dialogue simple so that the former could appreciate the movies.

They aspired for sophistication with the second trilogy, hoping to come up with some weird graft of '70s political thrillers and '60s adventure epics, but the result was flat.

By the third trilogy, they now needed to target a PG sweet spot and an international audience, many of whom were very young or not yet born when the earlier films came out, and had to produce quickly in order to avoid opportunity costs. So they rehashed storylines and characters (because younger audiences won't notice, and reused formulae worked before) and came up with a bewildering concoction of adventure, teenage dialogue, '70s political intrigue, comedic moments that fell flat, and '60s epic scenes that looked cartoonish, all within plots that had to be understood by viewers from different cultures and had to cram in as much spectacle and content in order to justify high ticket prices.

And the same thing happened to Marvel and other franchises.

Thus, Disney is expected to do the same for future movies. The catch is that at some point that audience will become like older ones, and will be tired of watching essentially the same thing in every new movie: too much sound and fury signifying nothing. And since there'll be too many to watch, they'll probably just wait for them to be available on streaming or even free streaming with or without ads (and will probably subscribe, binge-watch, and then unsubscribe), or in bargain bins.


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## Swank (Dec 21, 2022)

paeng said:


> That's certain, but I think the biggest problem's in the writing. That's why even if you get actors that fit that mold and of the same nationalities the films would still be awful.


I wasn't talking about the primary problem. 

You can certainly say it is the writing, since that is pretty much how everything starts. But the dialogue in particular in Star Wars is pretty pathetic - and it's an incredible film.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 21, 2022)

Swank said:


> I wasn't talking about the primary problem.
> 
> You can certainly say it is the writing, since that is pretty much how everything starts. But the dialogue in particular in Star Wars is pretty pathetic - and it's an incredible film.



"I got a bad felling about this"    Very lame stuff .


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## Swank (Dec 21, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> "I got a bad felling about this"    Very lame stuff .


If you think that's bad, consider the dialogue in 2001. 

These are not dialogue driven films. A little exposition, a little natural patter. That's all that's necessary. They aren't Mamet or Sorkin plays.


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## paeng (Dec 22, 2022)

Swank said:


> I wasn't talking about the primary problem.
> 
> You can certainly say it is the writing, since that is pretty much how everything starts. But the dialogue in particular in Star Wars is pretty pathetic - and it's an incredible film.


The dialogue is part of writing, and it's just one of many problems with the films.


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## paeng (Dec 22, 2022)

Swank said:


> If you think that's bad, consider the dialogue in 2001.
> 
> These are not dialogue driven films. A little exposition, a little natural patter. That's all that's necessary. They aren't Mamet or Sorkin plays.



They don't have to be Mamet plays or dialogue-driven to avoid being bad. They just need to be written correctly. In this case, the dialogue has to be written such that it looks natural rather than stilted, wooden, or awkward, and in some cases the actors have to step in and help. Here are a few points from main actors conccerning the earlier films:






And some examples, with some repeated points:






But again, that's just one problem. There are many more involving writing.


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 23, 2022)

The original movies hardly had the greatest dialogue, but it suited the movies and that's all that really matters. I'm sure at times the likes of Sir Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing raised eyebrows at the lines they were given, but as consummate professionals they delivered them as though they believed in what they were saying.

Lines such as 'Why do I get the feeling you're going to be the death of me?" in Attack of the Clones was ill-chosen, poorly delivered and leaves the viewer wondering if it was meant to be comedy or foreshadowing.


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## paeng (Dec 24, 2022)

I think the first trilogy was inspired by Republic serials, which means they're really meant for kids. The second was meant as some weird hybrid of the first trilogy, a political thriller, and a 1960s epic. The third was meant to target the PG sweet spot but involving an international audience that barely knew about the first two trilogies.


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## Swank (Dec 24, 2022)

paeng said:


> I think the first trilogy was inspired by Republic serials, which means they're really meant for kids.


Maybe someone thought they were meant for kids, but the first two films were adult.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 26, 2022)

paeng said:


> I think the first trilogy was inspired by Republic serials, which means they're really meant for kids. The second was meant as some weird hybrid of the first trilogy, a political thriller, and a 1960s epic. The third was meant to target the PG sweet spot but involving an international audience that barely knew about the first two trilogies.



That makes sense.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 26, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> The original movies hardly had the greatest dialogue, but it suited the movies and that's all that really matters. I'm sure at times the likes of Sir Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing raised eyebrows at the lines they were given, but as consummate professionals they delivered them as though they believed in what they were saying.
> 
> Lines such as 'Why do I get the feeling you're going to be the death of me?" in Attack of the Clones was ill-chosen, poorly delivered and leaves the viewer wondering if it was meant to be comedy or foreshadowing.



Having two actors  of such stature as  Peter Cushing and Sir Alex Guinness in Star Wars was a very a big deal and contributed  to to the success  of this film in no small measure.  It also likely increased to the appeal of being in  science fiction films for major actors.


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 26, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> Having two actors  of such stature as  Peter Cushing and Sir Alex Guinness in Star Wars was a very a big deal and contributed  to to the success  of this film in no small measure.  It also likely increased to the appeal of being in  science fiction films for major actors.




British actors seem to play a key part in the original trilogy, a lot seemingly with no little or movie experience but plenty of British tv shows, Michael 'Mr Bronson' Sheard being one of my favourites, but there are plenty of others


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## Swank (Dec 26, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> Having two actors  of such stature as  Peter Cushing and Sir Alex Guinness in Star Wars was a very a big deal and contributed  to to the success  of this film in no small measure.  It also likely increased to the appeal of being in  science fiction films for major actors.


I doubt Americans in 1978 had any idea who Peter Cushing was or had ever seen a Hammer film.


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## AllanR (Dec 26, 2022)

Swank said:


> I doubt Americans in 1978 had any idea who Peter Cushing was or had ever seen a Hammer film.


As a teen in Canada, Peter Cushing was the only name I really knew before the movie. 
I leaned of Alex Guinness and his career afterward.


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## paeng (Dec 27, 2022)

Guinness on _Star Wars_


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