Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson, 2017)

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domino harvey
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#376 Post by domino harvey » Wed Sep 05, 2018 11:01 am

Ouro Bourosian is the name of Matt Smith's character in Episode IX

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movielocke
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#377 Post by movielocke » Wed Sep 05, 2018 12:27 pm

domino harvey wrote:Ouro Bourosian is the name of Matt Smith's character in Episode IX
He’s an unobtainium smuggler


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swo17
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#379 Post by swo17 » Fri Sep 21, 2018 1:40 pm

Two?

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R0lf
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#380 Post by R0lf » Tue Sep 25, 2018 8:33 am

If I was being totally cynical re. the slowdown I would say that some indeterminate time after episode 9 drops (because they've burnt through the original trilogy cast and are now positioned far enough away from the prequels) they'll announce George Lucas is returning to STAR WARS to write and produce a new series of films.

BAM! and everyone will be excited again.

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domino harvey
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#381 Post by domino harvey » Tue Sep 25, 2018 9:14 am

No

connor
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#382 Post by connor » Tue Sep 25, 2018 11:05 am

swo17 wrote:
Fri Sep 21, 2018 1:40 pm
Two?
Yeah, what are the two? Solo and what? The Last Jedi made a ton of money, was very popular with audiences and critics (but unpopular with a loud group of fanboys). I thought Solo was fine and The Last Jedi was fantastic.

I hope this doesn't mean Rian Johnson's new, non-Skywalker-related trilogy is getting canned.

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tenia
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#383 Post by tenia » Tue Sep 25, 2018 11:18 am

I recall The Last Jedi being considered as dragging behind, BO-wise. Technically, it did gross massively less than TFA (roughly 35% less worldwide and domestically), but this is most certainly due to TFA's huge BO success : how can you sustain almost a $1bn domestic result and a $2bn worldwide one ? It would have been a miracle to pull this off twice, especially in a context where TFA followed a 10 years break while TLJ was the 3rd SW movie within a 3 years period.

This being written, TLJ's BO figures are closer to Rogue One's one than TFA, which could be perceived as below the expectations for Disney. But in any case, the only one really bringing up the rear of the BO is Solo (which indeed isn't particularly bad, but is just not very interesting. The train hold up action scene though is tremendous).

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#384 Post by Mr Sausage » Tue Sep 25, 2018 11:40 am

Didn’t Empire also gross less than the original?

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#385 Post by connor » Tue Sep 25, 2018 11:43 am

Mr Sausage wrote:
Tue Sep 25, 2018 11:40 am
Didn’t Empire also gross less than the original?
Yeah, significantly less. And apparently the reviews at the time were mixed.

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#386 Post by willoneill » Tue Sep 25, 2018 12:34 pm

Mr Sausage wrote:
Tue Sep 25, 2018 11:40 am
Didn’t Empire also gross less than the original?
It did, and The Return of the Jedi ended up grossing a total in between the two. The pattern repeated with the prequel trilogy, and I expect it to happen again with Episode IX.


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R0lf
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#388 Post by R0lf » Tue Oct 02, 2018 11:30 pm

Does the paper include a Venn diagram with the 10% of legit haters and people who post on blu-ray.com?

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domino harvey
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#389 Post by domino harvey » Wed Oct 03, 2018 2:10 am

Honestly, at this point, hearing someone go into their "Well actually" diatribe against the Last Jedi has the same visceral reaction for me as someone saying they support Donald Trump

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tenia
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#390 Post by tenia » Wed Oct 03, 2018 4:10 am

Though we probably already guessed that, it's good to be able to have figures to understand the exact intensity of it. However, I was wondering : why Russians ? It seems like an unlikely pool of people, but I suppose this is just some kind of Six Degrees stuff "SW evolving - Alt right not liking it - russian trolls", and in a way to either bias the discussion between a more progressive or a more conservative stance and to spark controversies in there, I suppose the visibility offered by the evolution of SW (especially with a more diverse ethnicity and more female protagonists) was perfect.

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#391 Post by bearcuborg » Wed Oct 03, 2018 8:53 am

connor wrote:
Tue Sep 25, 2018 11:05 am
swo17 wrote:
Fri Sep 21, 2018 1:40 pm
Two?
Yeah, what are the two? Solo and what? The Last Jedi made a ton of money, was very popular with audiences and critics (but unpopular with a loud group of fanboys). I thought Solo was fine and The Last Jedi was fantastic.

I hope this doesn't mean Rian Johnson's new, non-Skywalker-related trilogy is getting canned.
Even if one likes TLJ, I did for the most part, it was clearly divisive. And we can stop with the fanboy take, that’s not the entire story. There are SW fans who aren’t deplorables or George Lucas haters who didn’t like the movie.

Rian has gone on record a couple weeks ago saying that he is still making those movies, which kinda surprised me. I’d rather see him do an Obi Wan/Luke movie. His take on the force was the most interesting take since the original movies.

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#392 Post by moreorless » Fri Oct 05, 2018 2:02 am

Hasn't the individual behind the initial report spoken out against the media pushing the "Russian" angle? honestly to me falling back to the standard "Russia ate my homework" story really just further confirms the feeling that films like The Last Jedi are almost an out growth of the current political climate. To me it doesn't feel like blockbuster cinema that's much interested in actually making a political point in the way say Mad max Fury Road did about "toxic masculinity" so much as it is exploiting existing public feeling in a rather cynical fashion. You basically have a film were any criticism can be written off as bigotry rather than due to a lack of quality.

Honestly my feeling is that the nub of the problem really goes back to the Force Awakens, it might have been successful at the time due to the massive pent up demand featuring the return of the characters from the original films but I feel that stylistically Abrams was a poor choice for re launching a franchise like this. To me his style is far too insubstantial, he puts very little time or effort into building setting and character instead favouring very rapid plotting heavy with action/nostalgia/humour. The general tone of his work as well is I think clearly more cartoonish, if it resembles anything from the originals its the Ewok sections of Return of the Jedi.

I actually felt between these two films Lucasfilm did largely "get things right" with Rogue One, a film that feels much more like a modern update of Empire Strikes Back in terms of tone to me. I think its notable that dispite having a female lead to it you did not get the same mass backlash against it, if anything its reputation seems to be growing rather. Really I think the lesson there should be simple, hire a talented director who actually wants to make a Starwars film.
Last edited by moreorless on Fri Oct 05, 2018 5:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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domino harvey
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#393 Post by domino harvey » Fri Oct 05, 2018 2:10 am

They did

moreorless
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#394 Post by moreorless » Fri Oct 05, 2018 5:14 am

I don't think they did with Johnson, for one thing he seems more interested in following Abrams in style than the original films, for another I think that dispite clearly drawing heavily on them he doesn't seem to have a great deal of respect for them. The end result to me is a film that feels incredibly smug yet is ultimately a bit of a cartoonish mess with very little weight behind its grand standing.

I wouldn't be surprised if studio pressure was a big factor there though, the entire climax of the film to me felt tacked on as if Rey potentially joining Kylo was the original idea that Disney baulked at. The end result is I feel a film that backs down from its own premise, the idea that the simplistic good/bad divide has been was led to the current situation. In the end though we get Rey and Kylo retreating to even more simplistic good and bad positions than we saw previously and the message of the film seems to end up as a rather dodgy authoritarian one, "don't try to understand your enmies their just evil" and "don't trust your own morals, your superiors know best".

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#395 Post by nitin » Fri Oct 05, 2018 9:50 am

When will people admit the original Star Wars Films (as great as the first two are) are also cartoonish and also insubstantial?

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tenia
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#396 Post by tenia » Fri Oct 05, 2018 10:03 am

I think they felt less ambitious than the newer ones. Like they weren't taking themselves as seriously than the new ones. That can make a lot of difference on how one can overlook a movie being insubstantial, inconsistant or cartoonish.

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#397 Post by bearcuborg » Fri Oct 05, 2018 12:47 pm

moreorless wrote:
Fri Oct 05, 2018 5:14 am
The end result to me is a film that feels incredibly smug yet is ultimately a bit of a cartoonish mess with very little weight behind its grand standing.

I wouldn't be surprised if studio pressure was a big factor there though, the entire climax of the film to me felt tacked on as if Rey potentially joining Kylo was the original idea that Disney baulked at.
I never felt smug, and I don’t think Rian wrote anything under studio pressure either. However, he seems to lose Rey in the ending, I just remember thinking that I didn’t care if she hadn’t met Poe yet, and Leia could have easily lifted the rock. His idea for Luke made me want more, even if the Rashoman idea was a bit silly.

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#398 Post by moreorless » Fri Oct 05, 2018 1:15 pm

bearcuborg wrote:
Fri Oct 05, 2018 12:47 pm
I never felt smug, and I don’t think Rian wrote anything under studio pressure either. However, he seems to lose Rey in the ending, I just remember thinking that I didn’t care if she hadn’t met Poe yet, and Leia could have easily lifted the rock. His idea for Luke made me want more, even if the Rashoman idea was a bit silly.
I don't extend the criticism of smungness to those who enjoyed it. :wink:

To me it felt like it was rather too keen to show us the simplistic nature of Starwars previously yet ultimtaley the film felt far simpler itself that Empire Strikes Back that had the guts to see though its central concept. Here though whatever the cause it felt to me that the film was clearly building in one direction in the rejection of the previous more simplistic view of dark/light only to revert to it and throw in a recycled climax along the lines of Hoth, it just felt like a very safe and gutless move to me akin to say having Luke defeat Vader in Empire and reveal his claims of being his father were a lie.

The entire plot around the rebels/resistance felt like it was massively unwritten to me as well with characters acting in non sensical fashions to push the plot along.

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#399 Post by nitin » Fri Oct 05, 2018 7:05 pm

tenia wrote:
Fri Oct 05, 2018 10:03 am
I think they felt less ambitious than the newer ones. Like they weren't taking themselves as seriously than the new ones. That can make a lot of difference on how one can overlook a movie being insubstantial, inconsistant or cartoonish.
Well yes (I did say in my post that I think the first 2 films are great), and I don’t think either of the new ones are anywhere in the same league as those first two overall, but they are better than ROTJ and any of the prequels and Rogue One, all of which did take themselves very seriously and many of the same criticisms apply to them.

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#400 Post by moreorless » Fri Oct 05, 2018 11:42 pm

nitin wrote:
Fri Oct 05, 2018 9:50 am
When will people admit the original Star Wars Films (as great as the first two are) are also cartoonish and also insubstantial?
I think that's just a very simplified defence of these sequels personally, yeah the original films are blockbuster cinema that include a lot of action and humour and take place in a space fantasy setting but still they treat that setting with a good degree of seriousness as they do the characters and the majority of the humour takes the form of wit.

It seems a bit strange to me that "better than Return of the Jedi" is often used to praise the sequels yet the main reason people put down that film is the Ewok scenes within it which are actually the scenes that reflect the sequels most closely in tone, even then though I think you see a good deal less goofiness. Being better than the prequels isn't exactly high praise.

By comparison to the originals I think Abrams film especially is much more insubstantial, more cartoonish and far more poorly written generally. I think its a style of cinema that hopes that by throwing action, humour and nostalgia at the viewer quickly enough its faults aren't going to be noticed in the one off viewing its designed for.

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