Kevin's Watch

Overthinking it much, almost everyone in this thread?

I don't remember analyzing every technical and narrative aspect of Star Wars back in 1977 when I was a kid.

All of these films, except for The Last Jedi, were generally intended for the unadulterated entertainment of children.

Probably not the best film series to hyper analyze as if it's the Godfather.

I loved it!

There were things about TFA, decisions that JJ Abrams made that I disagreed with. And I know that he said from the beginning that he would direct TFA only. But looking back now, it would have been better if Disney had done whatever it took to secure JJ for all 3 films. Rian Johnson made a complete mess of TLJ, and I'm still pissed about that. TROS was JJ's attempt at fixing all of the terrible decisions that Johnson made, and I'm glad that he did.

Dam-sel, Menolly, and I saw it a few days ago and liked it a lot.

Spoiler

The quibble that got the most discussion was how the heck people (and critters) could be charging hither and yon on the exterior of a spacecraft with neither suits nor tethers. Yes, ex-NASA folk can be picky about scenes set in space.

I thought it was awesome!

aTOMiC wrote:Overthinking it much, almost everyone in this thread?

I don't remember analyzing every technical and narrative aspect of Star Wars back in 1977 when I was a kid.

That's because you were a kid. We enjoy what we enjoy at whatever level of development we are at currently. There was stuff I enjoyed about Lord of the Rings that I don't quite connect to now, and stuff I enjoy a lot more now than I did when I originally read it. Covenant too. Billy Joel's Glass Houses as well. Hell, a whole host of things.

You say Star Wars doesn't merit a deeper exploration of themes and archetypes and such? Fine. Enjoy it how you want to enjoy it. Some of us enjoy the deep dive into it all and reading "Hero With A Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell, who was a strong influence in the writing. I find myself more interested these days in how the original Star Wars captured the zeitgeist of the time, and how much of a rebel Lucas was at the time of making that first movie. And how the series is now in the hands of the Empire of Disney and doesn't mean as much socio-politically.
But mainly, it is a public record that I can choose to enjoy however I want to enjoy it. I paid my money, and as a consumer, I can choose to enjoy it however I want. And in response, you can turn off your brain and just see the pretty images dance about on the screen.
I just want to state I'm not just attacking you aTOMiC, as there are a bunch of people who jump on this bandwagon that it was always meant to be stories for kids and that we should only consume them as light entertainment, thus discounting why their sticking power has been so strong over the years. You may love delving into the Godfather, but I find the exploration of the topic of power immensely boring, and think the Godfather series is greatly overrated, like most of the gangster flicks that bore me to tears, because they almost all end the same way; a huge body count.
I'm not a big Star Wars fan anymore, at least like I was when I was 10 or so, and a lot of the dialogue in the original movie just hits me as stupid. I used to love all of Han's funny moments, and now I like Harrison Ford's delivery, some of the time. Nostalgia certainly plays into it, but doesn't leave me too blind to see the faults. I didn't really watch it during the long drought of movies before the prequels came out, and I saw the three films in the theater for the Special Edition. Watching that was eye-opening after I'd been through several film classes, and I saw them as an adult. But I found new things to appreciate about them. Mastery at world building, technical things and special effects that still worked (other than the digital "enhancements" he put in), and stuff like that.
Ultimately, you can't dictate aesthetics, and how much enjoyment people get out of thinking about things. And I like musicians that get political in their music, so the "shut up and play the music" crowd I'll never join in with. Then again, I get my enjoyment out of thinking about things, and if you don't, then that's fine with me. Just don't harsh my buzz, yo.

Savor Dam wrote:Dam-sel, Menolly, and I saw it a few days ago and liked it a lot.

Spoiler

The quibble that got the most discussion was how the heck people (and critters) could be charging hither and yon on the exterior of a spacecraft with neither suits nor tethers. Yes, ex-NASA folk can be picky about scenes set in space.

Spoiler

Weren't they on the hull of a ship that was still inside the atmosphere of that planet? That explains noise and the ability to breathe. As far as walking on the hull, that's easy--magnetic boots.

My biggest problem is the lightspeed-hopping. Dropping out of hyper or jumping back in to hyper inside a planetary atmosphere should have created catastrophic shock waves.

Other than that....no--if he had that many ships of that class he would not have been hiding and waiting, he would have been kicking ass but not bothering to take names. On a practical note, though, that proves that the planet-killer weapon on the original Death Star was only a prototype; once the technology was proven the engineers managed to scale it down.

I am old enough to remember seeing Star Wars in the theater when it first came out. It changed my life and I loved it. It's a wonderful escape into a universe full of characters I can love and root for and ones I can hate and root against. It's full of fun escapades and silliness and it's something I've been a fan of pretty much as long as I can remember. I take each movie as just that. I loved all of them in their own way, some of them more than others and I liked some aspects of some and disliked others but as a whole I love the entire series of films each one in it's own way.

Cagliostro wrote:You may love delving into the Godfather, but I find the exploration of the topic of power immensely boring, and think the Godfather series is greatly overrated, like most of the gangster flicks that bore me to tears, because they almost all end the same way; a huge body count.

Oh, you should totally give Succession a shot then: power dynamics without the body count. They still have hyper-masculinity, but it's not the norm; more of a quirk of a certain character or two, and something that's mocked as much as it would be hyped in a Scorcese flick. It and Barry are my two favorite things on TV this last year.

Finally saw SW:tRoS the other day. Like the other movies in the latest run, I found it to be fun and engaging but not worth thinking about after I left the theatre. It didn't do anything new, the character arcs were minimal, but there was spectacle aplenty, and all the old faves got put on the table one last time. (Except Yoda?)

But I will mention one thing that freaked me out. And to understand why, I need to say that Harrison Ford has always been my visual and vocal model for the Thomas Covenant who lives in my brain. And for some reason, his appearance in this movie, and the way he spoke, just slammed me with an unexpected visceral flashback to the Last Chronicles. I nearly choked.

That's a pretty big spoiler, WF.

My wife and I saw it this weekend. I was not WOW'd by it but I did enjoy the movie for what it was.

Spoiler

I did like the way they weaved Leia and Han into the movie. I also loved some of the new uses for the force. But I was a bit disappointed that the Sith Lord went down so easy at the end. I thought the attempt to turn her to the Dark side was way to brief.

SoulBiter wrote:My wife and I saw it this weekend. I was not WOW'd by it but I did enjoy the movie for what it was.

Spoiler

I did like the way they weaved Leia and Han into the movie. I also loved some of the new uses for the force. But I was a bit disappointed that the Sith Lord went down so easy at the end. I thought the attempt to turn her to the Dark side was way to brief.

Spoiler

Once he realized he could regenerate himself and regain his youth by draining the two of them, turning anyone became unimportant. With a new life to live he could search for, and turn, anyone else who happened to be in tune.

As far as spoilers....the movie has been out for a month already, so YouTube has all sorts of clips available. These days, I think "one month" is about all you can expect for "spoiler-free season".

Now that I've officially seen all the "Star Wars" films (except for Solo), I'll say that only episodes "4-6" wowed me, the rest have been pale imitations of what could have been.

OTOH I agree with SB that the last movie was enjoyable taken by itself.

Only one outside of the above mentioned that I thought was pretty good was "Rogue One".

The Rise of Skywalker
Ruin Johnson
Jar Jar Abrams

The title should be 'A non Skywalker steals everything the OT heroes had'.
Falcon, R2, 3PO, lightsaber, Chewie, victory against Palpatine and even the Skywalker name.



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"If a person aspires to a righteous life, their first act of abstinence is from injury to animals." - Albert Einstein

I saw this a few days ago and really enjoyed it .. it was fun and really liked the ending ... so glad they didnt end up in an odd incestuously destined coupling or some such path .. so was satisfied where it went and how things ended up.