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Re: Star Wars (Spoilers)

Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2016 6:44 pm
by Peepster1976
Watched the movie a month ago, and I really liked it. It's got a really good STAR-WARS vibes!!! Good acting overall. Big fan of Rey and Poe. Good villain, indeed a character in process.
Fantastic music!!

Before I watched the prequels, thought they were bad, but u know, to get back in to the STAR-WAR feeling...... Man those are so much worse after seeing the Force awakens.

So really happy with the results, definitely watch it in cinema again!

chrzz

Re: Star Wars (Spoilers)

Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2016 7:45 pm
by Duranthalis
The problem that I had with the movie was that they tried to explain too many backstories in too little time.

What made the original trilogy fantastic was that you followed one character ... got his story, and the other characters supported that character. You learned more and more about the villain as the main character learned more about him.

In TFA, the story was about EVERYONE. It was unfocused. What was the plot..? Discover Skywalker's whereabouts? We didn't realize this until how far into the movie?

Re: Star Wars (Spoilers)

Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2016 8:57 pm
by Teledor
Duranthalis wrote:The problem that I had with the movie was that they tried to explain too many backstories in too little time.

What made the original trilogy fantastic was that you followed one character ... got his story, and the other characters supported that character. You learned more and more about the villain as the main character learned more about him.

In TFA, the story was about EVERYONE. It was unfocused. What was the plot..? Discover Skywalker's whereabouts? We didn't realize this until how far into the movie?
Definitely a valid criticism. There was a lot of missing "why"s in this movie.

But again, I think they were largely minor issues that, if done right, Episode 8 will handle. The original trilogy had some 400 minutes to tell the story, TFA was only 135, it would be a stretch to do one character's full background and keep the movie going forward.

With ANH we generally knew little about everyone if you think about it. From Luke's perspective all we knew about Vader was that Vader supposedly killed Luke's freighter flying father and killed Ben, which was kind of Ben's plan. Everything else we learned about Vader was from Vader & friends scenes - force choking, piloting, ruthlessness, the Force, etc. We didn't know much about Leia, except she was princess, or Han other than greedy smuggler/anti-hero (before those became vogue).

Remaining questions from ANH at the end - who is this "Empire"? Why'd they go around blowing up planets supposedly filled with innocent civilians? What about the Rebellion? Who are these guys? What are they rebelling for? Etc.

Re: Star Wars (Spoilers)

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 9:25 am
by Prince of Spires
My prediction is that number 8 will not be a very good movie. Why? Simply because it's a trilogy and number 2 always sucks. It's a movie to get viewers from part 1 to part 3. And not a lot happens that really matters. We'll see, but I wouldn't get my hopes up...

I think in TFA they had the tough job of building on the existing story, with all the known background to a lot of viewers. Part of the audience would know all that went before and probably get bored by too much explaining. The other part wouldn't know anything and get confused about what's going on.

For me, finding skywalker was a bit a side thing in the movie. It was too easy really to be a major plot thing. Yes, everyone wants to get the map, and is willing to blow up planets in the process. But that was the story. The actual finding of him was more an after thought...

As for Ren, I'm not a fan. The emotional, uncontrolled teenager just didn't do it for me. Probably great for the viewers aged 12 - 18. Who were the important ones to get on board really. After all, everyone older already had a strong opinion about Star wars and would watch it (or not) based on the previous movies. I like my bad-guys bad, but not just because. They need to be controlled and have valid reasons for acting. Not just have a parent complex and throw tantrums.

Still, I liked it well enough and I'll go watch number 8 when it comes out.

Rod

Re: Star Wars (Spoilers)

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 1:12 pm
by SpellArcher
Teledor wrote:It was flawed, not going to lie, but it felt like Star Wars.
This! Watch it through the eyes of a child and you're grand.
Prince of Spires wrote:My prediction is that number 8 will not be a very good movie. Why? Simply because it's a trilogy and number 2 always sucks. It's a movie to get viewers from part 1 to part 3. And not a lot happens that really matters. We'll see, but I wouldn't get my hopes up...
In general I agree Rod but The Empire Strikes Back was held by most to be the best of the original trilogy.

Re: Star Wars (Spoilers)

Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 2:41 pm
by Malossar
Hey now Rod, I still maintain the Two Towers was the best of the Peter Jackson films. :mrgreen:

Re: Star Wars (Spoilers)

Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 6:32 pm
by SpellArcher
Malossar wrote:I still maintain the Two Towers was the best of the Peter Jackson films.
The man has a point.

Re: Star Wars (Spoilers)

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 9:49 am
by Prince of Spires
SpellArcher wrote:
Malossar wrote:I still maintain the Two Towers was the best of the Peter Jackson films.
The man has a point.
Ok, ok. I'll give you that one. However, as a counter example, there is also the second Hobbit movie. Or what to think of the second matrix film?

Rod

Re: Star Wars (Spoilers)

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 11:18 am
by SpellArcher
Prince of Spires wrote:However, as a counter example, there is also the second Hobbit movie.
I felt it was OK, a bit breathless perhaps. Maybe my critical faculties were dulled!
Prince of Spires wrote:Or what to think of the second matrix film?
Again, quite liked it. Not as good as the first, better than the third. I think there was a lot of expectation on it.

Re: Star Wars (Spoilers)

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 3:48 pm
by Malossar
In my world the other two Matrix movies never happened 8)

Re: Star Wars (Spoilers)

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 3:57 pm
by Prince of Spires
Malossar wrote:In my world the other two Matrix movies never happened 8)
That's probably best for your sanity. The strange thing is, I know I've seen them, but I have no clue anymore what happened in them. Except for some flashes of a handful of scenes in them. And it's been that way since pretty much right after watching them. So you might be right and they never actually happened...
SpellArcher wrote:
Prince of Spires wrote:However, as a counter example, there is also the second Hobbit movie.
I felt it was OK, a bit breathless perhaps.
Given what he had to work with it was an OK movie. But that was mainly because they turned a 250 page children's book into 3 three hour movies. There was just nothing to show really. Even in the book, the middle part is mainly just people walking to somewhere. The whole trilogy would have been better if they simply skipped the second movie and put all the interesting bits of that movie into part one and three (while keeping their length the same...). Of course, that would have made it a duology (?) but that's a minor detail.

I'm trying hard to think of more trilogy examples. Can't come up with any.

Rod

Re: Star Wars (Spoilers)

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 4:10 pm
by SpellArcher
Prince of Spires wrote:I'm trying hard to think of more trilogy examples. Can't come up with any.
Well, there was this second film called "Attack of the Clones"

:)

Re: Star Wars (Spoilers)

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 2:41 am
by Duranthalis
Not counting the other trilogies previously mentioned (LotR, SW, Matrix), here's what I came up with:

Lackluster 2nd films from Trilogies:
Jaws II
Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom
National Lampoon's European Vacation (yes, I know ... they added in 2 other movies ...)
The Godfather part II
Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (dead man's chest)
Terminator II
Ocean's Twelve

Good 2nd films from Trilogies:
The Road Warrior (aka, Mad Max 2)
Aliens (can we just forget that Alien:Resurrection exists?)
The Dark Knight
Men in Black II
X2 (X-men)
The Bourne Supremacy
Iron Man 2
Shrek II

Re: Star Wars (Spoilers)

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 3:39 am
by Teledor
Whoa. Godfather Part II in "lackluster".. Bold. Must disagree.

Same with Terminator II. Major improvement over Terminator. Hell the original was confused - you had no real idea about why a time traveling robot was coming back to kill her. Two basically gave you the why. Now, I'm not fan of the cheese in the movie - "Hasta la vista, baby.", etc. But it's kind of due to Arnold.

The Temple of Doom. Now there's a tough one. Torn. Almost belongs in lackluster due to the female lead screaming all the damn time and her complaining. ... But technically it took place before 1 and 3. It was just an adventure story. Like the whole Indy "trilogy" if you call it that. They aren't really related stories, just three Indy themed movies.

Aliens. Spot on. Same with The Dark Knight.

Bourne Supremacy I know I've seen but forgettable.

Trying to contribute some other trilogies here. Can't think of any. But usually in trilogies either two or three blow. One is usually the reason a trilogy is getting made, so it's pretty good. But sometimes you have two's that are fantastic and they blow the third because they cannot stick the landing. Godfather Part II to Part III (why! WHY?!).

Hunger Games Mockinjay - Part I and II. First they should never have split. Too long and the first half of part I is more petulant whining. Tried to stay too true to the book.

Austin Powers - hmm. The Spy Who Shagged Me was ok. Definitely better than the third.

Back to the Future Part II and III were kind of... meh. I guess Part II was good for the ending - "wait did he just get a letter from Doc. How?! Oh.. space time stuff. Interesting...." I could've lived without the Old West.

Re: Star Wars (Spoilers)

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 11:43 am
by Prince of Spires
Teledor wrote:But usually in trilogies either two or three blow. One is usually the reason a trilogy is getting made, so it's pretty good. But sometimes you have two's that are fantastic and they blow the third because they cannot stick the landing.
Perhaps this is the thing. For many trilogies to be made (instead remaining a single film), number one needs to be good. Otherwise, the movie studio is likely to pull the plug and save themselves some money. For me this was clearly the case with the Matrix. One was great. They could have simply left it there. But they had some ideas for more movies so they decided to do a trilogie. But somehow the stories they had weren't complete enough to be turned into great films. I think if matrix number 2 would have been the first one, we would have never seen a trilogy.

In a way I think this also goes for star wars. I remember reading somewhere that the reason George Lucas started with movie 4 and not 1 was that 4 was the easiest story to tell as a separate story. And thus the easiest to sell, both to the public but also to the production companies. The rest needed more background. I believe this is also perhaps why the original series was better then numbers 1-3. The story mattered less...

Rod