Movie Discussion Thread

Last night I watched The Kid on Hulu. A so-so movie but damn Ethan Hawke put in a helluva performance as Pat Garrett. He really masterfully portrayed the inner-conflict and enigmatic qualities of a guy like Garrett while bringing a bit of Kurt Russell vibe. Also, Chris Pratt just nailed this PoS uncle character. Unfortunately not the greatest acting from some of the other leads and a bit dead at times.

 

Creatively. No, they don't. Or at least they're not capable of replicating it.

Commercially, it sells itself. Anybody can make a Star Wars fan film, put it on youtube and get millions of views if the costumes are halfway convincing and there's a lightsaber in it.

 

Lucas' Empire wasn't a bad script though. Really, the character interactions and beats are similar to the first movie, which was solely written by Lucas. I mean, it's as if people forgot Lucas wrote A New Hope.... the guy knew what he was doing. .

The polish definitely helped, but it was not the difference between a good and bad movie. Lucas just literally couldn't finish it himself because he was too busy

 

I want to see an unrated Star Wars film directed by Lars von Trier.

 

Return of the Jedi is where things started to go off the rails. Lucas started caring more about making money to keep his other businesses going, selling toys and shit, and he was also going through the beginnings of an eventual divorce. Empire basically was a disaster on a making of level... it was a hellish shoot, they were always behind schedule, Lucas kept having to take out bank loans for more money and had to go crawling back to Fox for more money too, and they renegotiated the contract to be more in their favor. He wanted Jedi to go more smoothly... and to avoid stress, I don't think he put as much effort as he should have into making it as good as possible. Something that was more of a priority on Empire. I think alot of his natural storytelling instincts were corrupted.

 

LOL killing Han Solo in ROTJ would have been bad toy business.

If there is only one Star Wars film I can stomach today it would probably be the first one. I'd have to track down that "unremastered" version or whatever.

 

Some things that bothered me about Rise of Skywalker

Spoiler

So the whole Rey Kylo thing is pretty messed up. Didn't he basically mind rape her in the first movie? And try to kill her on numerous occasions? And they kiss at the end of this one? What kind of message is that sending to girls? Isn't Disney and Kennedy all about female empowerment? Romanticizing your abuser?

So they throw a black girl in the mix for Finn to flirt with (but they kind of don't), because white women and black men still can't be together in big movies for some weird reason. Basically it goes deeper than that because they didn't even let him hook up with Rose. Hollywood likes to label themselves as ultra progressive, but its one of the most regressive industries there is. And Finn still suffers from the same "magical negro" stereotypes that should've long been done away with. Where black men aren't really given much interior life and are there to support the lead white character. Almost everything Finn does in these movies is pine after a girl he isn't allowed to be with. It's honestly weirdly distracting and kind of upsetting as a black person myself.

The movies constantly kills people only to be like "SIKE!" and brings them back. It's as if JJ and co. don't have the balls to follow through with anything remotely daring.

Okay the Palpatine thing is a disaster. No explanation as to how he's back...though we are given a vague "dark side allows unnatural things to happen", or whatever. But at this point, how can we be sure Palpatine is actually dead? Especially since he seemingly spawned back to life like a video game character after dying in Jedi? Doesn't this nullify Rey's victory? And it makes her entire fight with him pointless, since he is basically all powerful and can cheat death. Palpatine essentially becomes like Jason or Freddy Krueger, invincible apparitions that can never really be killed, so the dramatic stakes become virtually nil. And this isn't even getting into how his return kind of destroys Anakin's character arc from the original trilogy.

And Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter? Laughable. Sidious doesn't strike me as a guy who is interested in shagging. And wasn't Rey supposed to be nobody like the first two movies kept beating into our heads? What happened?

Rey taking the Skywalker name is beyond ridiculous. And it's kind of disrespectful when you think about it. She's not adopted. She didn't ask permission. But her character seems to be a Mary Sue all powerful god who can do anything the script demands, so it's keeping in line with that. It's back the whole killing people but not really bullshit... the Skywalker line is gone after the death of Ben... but not really, 'cause Rey is gonna take the name and keep them going, so don't worry fans, it's all good. So so stupid.

I feel like there's more but I can barely stand to think about this movie long enough to extrapolate anything else.

 

The Mandalorian is far better than it has any right to be, though. Makes me hopeful for the upcoming Obi-wan Kenobi spinoff. In the meantime, I'll just pretend that the new trilogy doesn't exist.

 

I watched the first two episodes and didn't understand the love. It was kind of cheap looking and sparse, like they barely had a budget. And the lead character (The Mandalorian) seemed like a generic video game hero, complete with bad voice over acting. I just wasn't into it.

As much as I like Favreau, and think he's probably better at this than JJ or Johnson, it just makes Lucas' absence all the more obvious and impossible to ignore. These are just glorified fan films and come off as generic space-fi with the Star Wars name on it. It doesn't interest me. Not trying to say people can't enjoy it, but I'm done.

 

I like to think that it's a deliberate call to old Westerns and the fact that it's a much smaller story about characters that are (mostly) normal people in the SW universe. The pacing is definitely deliberate and probably has much to do with the TV show format, but it also gives the characters room to breath. Agree that the voice acting could be better, though.

Keep in mind that Luca's unfiltered vision gave us the prequels, which TBH isn't much more fun than the new trilogy although terrible in an entirely different way.

 

Responses under spoilers...

Spoiler

Rey + Darth Emo seems obviously a bone thrown to the angry white manbaby contingent, how this might affect impressionable girls isn’t a concern because the amount of fucks Hollywood gives for women is apparent in how few films pass the “bechdel test” or whatever.

This I don’t mind as much because there are so few black women in major movies. The problem I have is more that Finn should have had the Han Solo role and been more of a focus of the trilogy (and cast accordingly, imagine Idris Elba in that role). Instead of his love interest being tacked on they should have had a bigger supporting role throughout. Rey didn’t need a love interest just like Luke didn’t.

This is something that could have been explored, there are other ways to procreate than with a wife. What if he tried to create a breeding program using his genetic material to create a master race or whatever and Rey’s mom or dad escaped, etc. Maybe that’s a movie idea worth exploring a la Rogue One.

The problem I have with this line of complaint is nobody ever worries about like Iron Man being too powerful. It’s only when a woman is put into this role that it’s suddenly a big deal. Either situation is fantastical, it’s not really any more implausible that it’s a woman doing the superhuman whatever.

 

On the last Point, Ironman is a notable exception because he's been around for many decades and Tony Stark is a. An established genius in pop culture lore. The real downside of Iron Man is that he has not a single good villain. Rey could have been a solid character, she just wasn't written particularly well making her come across as a Mary Sue

 

I'm not saying Lucas should be writing and directing anything Star Wars, because his best days are behind him. What I mean is, he still understands his own universe better than anyone else and can be a valuable guiding hand going forward.

But Disney tossed his outlines for the sequel trilogy and didn't care what he had to say. And these are the movies we got. Total and utter shite.

I believe Lucas "consulted" on the Mandalorian, and yeah I'm aware of the Western motif, and it's a cool idea... it doesn't really change my feelings about the show or Disney Wars as a whole.

 

Lucas is a total hack. The best thing for Star Wars is to keep his fingerprints off of them.

I would get some crazy manic director to give their own interpretation of the Star Wars universe, characters, etc. Give it a hard R-rating. Most of the Star Wars geeks are adults so this should be no problem. If it flops, then go back to making safe Star Wars episodic sequels.

I don't know why people care so much about what a director thinks about their own movies. Usually they are wrong about them. Take Ridley Scott and Blade Runner. The fact he thinks Deckard is a replicant proves he misses the point of his own film. Oh well.