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Post by johnnypt on May 27, 2017 19:20:11 GMT -5
It's not only a good script, you have to have the actors to pull it off. The first set of films had full fledged stars (Guinness, Cushing, Williams and I'd put Oz in there), one superstar on the way (Ford) and a couple of actors learning their craft (Hamill and Fisher). They all seemed to find something in their characters, so when good to great lines presented themselves, they were able to take advantage of them. When you get to the prequels, the core characters got lost or really weren't there all that much to start with. The actors who'd played their roles previously (Oz and McDiarmid) knew where their characters were going, so they knew how to get them there. Christopher Lee...well, he goes without saying, he couldn't do wrong. And MacGregor had a solid template to work off of, so of the new cast he was really the only one who knew what to do with his character. Everyone else was a little lost.
I'm not ready to come to a complete conclusion on the new set(s) of films, I've generally liked them while acknowledging their flaws. They have been a little on the downbeat side and could use a little more good feelings. It's going to be difficult with the loss of Carrie Fisher hanging over the next two films in the main series, we'll see what else the anthologies will come up with.
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Post by themirrorthief on May 28, 2017 8:54:39 GMT -5
Guardians of the Galaxy and Pirates of Caribbean have definitely gone down a much more lively route and are cashing in on the pure entertainment value of their franchises. I think the latest Pirates movie might well be the best yet. Im not a huge fan but I really enjoyed it.....and oh yeah, the new leading lady in the latest pirates movie OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Post by themirrorthief on May 28, 2017 9:01:39 GMT -5
R2 Toto? I feel Chris has a good point about the quotability of a great script. Regarding technology vs storyline, George Lucas said that a lot of people thought Star Wars was popular because of all the blasters, droids, starships, space battles and lasers etc, but, he stressed, the real core was actually the characters and family soap opera elements. Hope I got that right. Long time since I saw the interview where he spoke about that. a lot of people feel very strongly that the characters from star wars were stolen from Wizard of Oz and Flash Gordon from the thirties Tin Woodman the scarecrow C3PO Cowardly Lion Chewbacca r2d2 Toto flying strormtroopers flying monkeys Darth Vader wicked witch of the west or Ming Obi wan good witch of the east Luke Skywalker Flash Gordon Han Solo buck Rogers etc etc
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Post by deuce on May 28, 2017 15:23:03 GMT -5
Reposted from some dude on Twitter:
"One thing that is interesting about the coming sequel is that Luke may have finally figured out that the Jedi are a disaster and need to go away.
Consider:
By Yoda's own admission they are arrogant and overrate themselves.
Yoda himself has had his ass kicked in every major lightsaber fight he's been in. Apparently the Dark Side does complete the Jedi training as Yoda certainly can't.
The Jedi can move apples around on a plate with their mind but apparently they cannot sense the most evil creature in the universe right under their nose AKA Palpatine.
Everything that Jedi order does backfires.
They can't figure out that all Skywalkers should be euthanized, and not coddled, nurtured and trained for another generation of screw-ups.
Apparently the sissy hot pants in The Force Awakens can defeat Sith Lords out of the box with her lightsaber. As has been pointed out ad infinitum, it took Skywalker -- what -- three movies to be able to barley lift a crate with the force? What is the point of the Jedi? What good, in the end, do they serve?"
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Post by deuce on May 29, 2017 8:23:57 GMT -5
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Post by andys on May 30, 2017 14:38:44 GMT -5
Reposted from some dude on Twitter: "One thing that is interesting about the coming sequel is that Luke may have finally figured out that the Jedi are a disaster and need to go away. Consider: By Yoda's own admission they are arrogant and overrate themselves. Yoda himself has had his ass kicked in every major lightsaber fight he's been in. Apparently the Dark Side does complete the Jedi training as Yoda certainly can't. The Jedi can move apples around on a plate with their mind but apparently they cannot sense the most evil creature in the universe right under their nose AKA Palpatine. Everything that Jedi order does backfires. They can't figure out that all Skywalkers should be euthanized, and not coddled, nurtured and trained for another generation of screw-ups. Apparently the sissy hot pants in The Force Awakens can defeat Sith Lords out of the box with her lightsaber. As has been pointed out ad infinitum, it took Skywalker -- what -- three movies to be able to barley lift a crate with the force? What is the point of the Jedi? What good, in the end, do they serve?" IMO most of that is based on prequel stuff and should therefore be ignored. It's never good for a franchise when the creator tries to get clever and say, "Hey, what if our heroes are actually a bunch of jerks?" I would say the best thing for Star Wars at this point would be to tone down the Jedi a great deal, limit their powers to the "simple tricks and nonsense" of the very first movie and treat them as classical warriors that have some kind of hidden edge, but that's probably a case of "you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube".
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Post by deuce on May 31, 2017 9:23:03 GMT -5
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Post by themirrorthief on May 31, 2017 20:25:18 GMT -5
IMO flicks like Guradians of the Galaxy are doing Star Wars but they are doing the earlier Star Wars while the current Star Wars takes itself way to seriously and had gotten just a wee bit STUFFY and way to predictable
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Post by andys on Jun 19, 2017 12:59:49 GMT -5
I recently obtained the Star Wars Despecialized Editions and had a great time watching the original original movies for the first time in many years. They hold up great.
Star Wars has always been my favorite because it has such a pure adventure feel to it and the characters are simply fun to watch. It's got this very chilled out 1970s undercurrent that I know many fans have been embarrassed about but which I like.
Empire is probably the most well-made film of the series, but I admit that in retrospect I'm slightly cool to it because almost every thing it sets up for the next movie ends up having a limp resolution in ROTJ. Whoever the "other" was supposed to be, it certainly wasn't Leia.
I know I'm not saying anything original here, but ROTJ, although entertaining, is basically where all the cracks in the franchise start to show. I don't know if Mark Hamill was aware but there's a bitchy, impatient tone to his delivery that makes Jedi Knight Luke very unlikable. Han is treated like an idiot who skirts by on luck rather than his wits (Now-too-good-for-it Luke literally rolls his eyes at his antics). Leia has none of the fire that makes her so much fun in the previous two. Lando has totally lost whatever edge he had in Empire. Everyone's just sort of smiley and domesticated (except Luke, who's either unpleasant or just a drag).
The movie has this awkward pacing as it repeatedly stops to let Luke ask Yoda and Ghost Obi-Wan questions about the story, and then they dutifully answer and make some kiss ass statement about how observant or insightful Luke is. Dull plotting.
Luke's fixation on turning Vader from the dark side sort of comes out of nowhere and sets a bad precedent for the franchise in that the whole idea of turning one way or the other ended up becoming a devalued cliche. In fairness, Vader has the decency to pay for his turn with his life because if he had lived and gone home with Luke, that would have been awfully complicated for everyone (consequences matter). I always liked the original idea of Vader as a haunted samurai who pledged his sword to the worst possible man and whose sense of honor held him captive to evil (e.g., check out 13 Assassins for a good take on this sort of thing). The franchise probably would have been better off in the long run that way.
When the new movies were in production, everyone was optimistic because Lawrence Kasdan was co-writing it and he co-wrote Empire, which is the best movie! Well, guess what - he also co-wrote ROTJ (and he did some other stupid movies like Dreamcatcher). The one unique element of Empire? A first draft by Leigh Brackett (well, that and Irvin Kershner as director).
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Post by finarvyn on Jun 19, 2017 13:20:31 GMT -5
I recently obtained the Star Wars Despecialized Editions and had a great time watching the original original movies for the first time in many years. They hold up great. That's awesome! I would love to get ahold of the original theater release of 1977 Star Wars, pre-"New Hope." Also, I and am really surprised that Lucas/Disney aren't selling every different edition they can in order to get my money multiple times for the "same" thing. Interesting observations about RotJ, by the way. I need to go re-watch using the lens you have provided to see if I agree, but my memory tells me that Luke whined a lot and Han was better lucky than good, so perhaps you are onto something...
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Post by lordyam on Jun 20, 2017 12:09:12 GMT -5
>>>> LORD YAM : Thanks for the NJO book series info. i would like to see a film based on those new powerful bio-tech-aliens. finding them resistant to lightsabers: the arogant jedi posers would sh#t their pants? cheesy-silly-boring-repeating-safe recent starwars films need a big different violent grim dark boost - to refresh my casual interest. May 9, 2017 6:58:33 GMT -7 ChrisLAdams said: I wish Disney hadn't gone the way of making both Force Awakens & Rogue One both having Disney princesses as the leading role. I can't hardly keep the two movies separate in my head. Recently a buddy of mine offered to loan me Rogue One and my wife said 'I have't seen that one, right?' and I said 'Yeah, we did.' Well I was thinking of Force Awakens. I had to go back later and ask to borrow Rogue so she could see it. I wish instead that one of the films used a differently sexed character other than a Disney Princess - and that's (for me anyway) what this boils down to. Anastasia, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Force Awakens, Rogue One - what do they all have in common? Oh - forgot one: Frozen. Well, probably forgot way more than one. You get the gist. If Rey had been TulSok - Son of Kenobi - instead, I'd be able to remember which the frig flick we were talking about. I'll be honest, I don't really mind having a female lead in the star wars films. It's a step forwards, and considering that there's still a lot of sexism in american society it's a good thing Too much grim dark doesn't work either though; The NJO had flaws but it still had an idealistic core at the end of it; in a way it was more faithful to star wars than what came afterwards
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Post by lordyam on Jun 20, 2017 12:10:55 GMT -5
May 28, 2017 13:23:03 GMT -7 deuce said: Reposted from some dude on Twitter:
"One thing that is interesting about the coming sequel is that Luke may have finally figured out that the Jedi are a disaster and need to go away.
Consider:
By Yoda's own admission they are arrogant and overrate themselves.
Yoda himself has had his ass kicked in every major lightsaber fight he's been in. Apparently the Dark Side does complete the Jedi training as Yoda certainly can't.
The Jedi can move apples around on a plate with their mind but apparently they cannot sense the most evil creature in the universe right under their nose AKA Palpatine.
Everything that Jedi order does backfires.
They can't figure out that all Skywalkers should be euthanized, and not coddled, nurtured and trained for another generation of screw-ups.
Apparently the sissy hot pants in The Force Awakens can defeat Sith Lords out of the box with her lightsaber. As has been pointed out ad infinitum, it took Skywalker -- what -- three movies to be able to barley lift a crate with the force? What is the point of the Jedi? What good, in the end, do they serve?"
Honestly the twitter post is a complete idiot who misses the point.
1.) That's the element of a tragedy; the jedi really were extremely effective back in the day but as time passed they got stagnant and complacent. They became arrogant and overly certain and in the end that's what allowed palpatine to overpower them
2.) Yoda actually did pretty well against Dooku for the most part; Dooku was forced to run in that fight. And Luke held his own against Vader pretty well for the most part, so his training wasn't exactly useless
3.) That can be easily explained as Palpatine masking his presence with the force or the massive imbalance going on in the force
4.) Not really; it's more that back in their heyday they really were that effective 5.) Ok that's horseshit right there; If Luke hadn't been around Palpy would still have the galaxy in his iron grip. Anakin's fall was partially his own arrogance and partially the Jedi's arrogance.
6.) Actually Luke was using the force very effectively by the end of Empire strikes back (see his leap out of the freezing chamber);
And as said before a lot of the anger against Rey WAS sexism (there were idiots who argued that Finn was "a war on the white race").
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Post by lordyam on Jun 20, 2017 12:26:42 GMT -5
I recently obtained the Star Wars Despecialized Editions and had a great time watching the original original movies for the first time in many years. They hold up great. Star Wars has always been my favorite because it has such a pure adventure feel to it and the characters are simply fun to watch. It's got this very chilled out 1970s undercurrent that I know many fans have been embarrassed about but which I like. Empire is probably the most well-made film of the series, but I admit that in retrospect I'm slightly cool to it because almost every thing it sets up for the next movie ends up having a limp resolution in ROTJ. Whoever the "other" was supposed to be, it certainly wasn't Leia. I know I'm not saying anything original here, but ROTJ, although entertaining, is basically where all the cracks in the franchise start to show. I don't know if Mark Hamill was aware but there's a bitchy, impatient tone to his delivery that makes Jedi Knight Luke very unlikable. Han is treated like an idiot who skirts by on luck rather than his wits (Now-too-good-for-it Luke literally rolls his eyes at his antics). Leia has none of the fire that makes her so much fun in the previous two. Lando has totally lost whatever edge he had in Empire. Everyone's just sort of smiley and domesticated (except Luke, who's either unpleasant or just a drag). The movie has this awkward pacing as it repeatedly stops to let Luke ask Yoda and Ghost Obi-Wan questions about the story, and then they dutifully answer and make some kiss ass statement about how observant or insightful Luke is. Dull plotting. Luke's fixation on turning Vader from the dark side sort of comes out of nowhere and sets a bad precedent for the franchise in that the whole idea of turning one way or the other ended up becoming a devalued cliche. In fairness, Vader has the decency to pay for his turn with his life because if he had lived and gone home with Luke, that would have been awfully complicated for everyone (consequences matter). I always liked the original idea of Vader as a haunted samurai who pledged his sword to the worst possible man and whose sense of honor held him captive to evil (e.g., check out 13 Assassins for a good take on this sort of thing). The franchise probably would have been better off in the long run that way. When the new movies were in production, everyone was optimistic because Lawrence Kasdan was co-writing it and he co-wrote Empire, which is the best movie! Well, guess what - he also co-wrote ROTJ (and he did some other stupid movies like Dreamcatcher). The one unique element of Empire? A first draft by Leigh Brackett (well, that and Irvin Kershner as director). Return had flaws but I didn't mind the vader redemption; he's fundementally a broken man who hates what he's become but feels it too late to go back. Luke ultimately redeeming him rather than killing him subverted cliches and Luke's desire to save him actually made sense. It shows that he's managed to keep the good elements of his younger years (his idealism and desire to help people) while still having grown more mature. Luke himself is at his best; he understands how shitty the world can be and that things aren't always nice but he's still idealistic and wants to help people. That the idealism is what ultimately saves the day is a nice touch and a rather optimistic message compared to a lot of grim dark bullshit
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Post by deuce on Dec 27, 2017 10:46:09 GMT -5
An uneven, but sometimes hilarious, episode of Rifftrax. Happy Life Day!
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Post by johnnypt on Dec 27, 2017 15:16:23 GMT -5
An uneven, but sometimes hilarious, episode of Rifftrax. Happy Life Day!
No surprise it confounds even Mike, Kevin and Bill! Adrian has been begging to watch this. I've been trying to warn him, but this may be just the way to do it.
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