It's really amazing that a company that owns an entire cinematic universe where 20+ films and several TV shows were all intricately woven together in a well fitting plotline couldn't even string a plot together for 3 movies with the same cast.
I never cared much for Star Wars because I think it's just dumbed down, lowest common denominator sci fi, so I'm going to enjoy watching the people who made this turd, and SW fans turn on each other
It's really amazing that a company that owns an entire cinematic universe where 20+ films and several TV shows were all intricately woven together in a well fitting plotline couldn't even string a plot together for 3 movies with the same cast.
It's because rather than hiring competent creatives, Disney prefer to get studio drones who will ghostwrite the producers "vision" into a transparent product. Abrams, Johnson, Howard, it's never about them, regarding Disney's Star Wars they're just studio figureheads, they're on a creative leash and the owner keeps it tight. The exception lies with Edwards' Rogue One, this one I can't explain why it wasn't absolutely terrible, they probably forgot they were doing it at some point and went along when the movie got released. That's what's probably terrible nowadays with Disney, it's their ambivalence: Rogue One, a movie they forgot they were doing it, versus Solo, a movie everyone wish they'd forget about it.
Well, read a few spoiler free reviews and as expected it's not a a good film. All pretty much say the same thing and I'll quote the opening statement from IO9 since it seems to convey the best just what everyone is saying.
If there’s something you always wanted to see in a Star Wars movie, but haven’t yet, odds are it’s in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The film plays like a 150-minute checklist of cool stuff and surprises designed to please as many fans as possible. That may sound great, but in the process, that densely packed highlight reel fails to tell a story that’s narratively interesting, thematically cohesive, or that builds any impactful stakes. It’s a film designed to tantalize and delight in the hope those things cover up its many shortcomings.
In JJ's defense, Rian set him up for the ninth inning with bases loaded and the meat of the order coming up. He panicked, tried his damnedest to impress with his best 98MPH fastball, but it shot straight down the middle for a grand slam. I mean, the guy's not a good closer to begin with. No one should be shocked that he couldn't dig his way out of the previous movie's mess. Oh well, at least we're done with Star Wars films for a while.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is being released to impossibly high expectations. It’s not just the conclusion of Disney’s Sequel Trilogy, but bills itself as the final conclusion to the Skywalker saga that began back in 1977. As such, audiences expect the film to provide some serious closure...
Before I tell you anything about how I liked TROS, here's my take on the other movies.
Prequels - mostly terrible, a few good ideas sprinkled here and there but overall wasted, learned to not let them bother me too much after a while.
Classics - love them. All of them, including ROTJ.
Rogue One - really liked it.. especially that ending, damn.
Solo - ehhh... it was alright, I guess?
Sequels - I liked TFA, I understand it's a beat for beat remix of ANH but I liked it because it was mostly harmless after the prequels. TLJ was super disappointing and a huge waste of potential.
So for me, TROS had a LOT to fix and catch up on after the mess TLJ left behind.
Did it solve all the problems? Some. It feels like a movie that has to do a metric fuckton of things, and it goes at breakneck pace to accomplish it but ultimately it doesn't solve everything. It has some cool scenes, some cool ideas, some bad scenes and some bad ideas.. I'd say it's almost as harmless as TFA because nothing in TROS made me ANGRY like TLJ did, but after the rage TLJ unleashed this will not be enough for some people.
Below are spoilers, you've been warned.
What I liked (in no particular order) :
- Palpatine returns immediately, no fake suspense.
- Sith holocrons (albeit not named as such) and a sort of Valley of the Dark Lords (though why they didn't name the planet Korriban is beyond me..)
- Rey finally makes her own saber (and the blade is yellow, predictable but I liked it).
- Leia's death and overall scenes were handled well.
- Force Ghost Luke had a really cool scene.
- Finn, Poe and Rey have a cool dynamic and chemistry, I liked their scenes together, it felt like an adventure or a quest.
- "Force Ghost Han Solo" (which he totally wasn't, he's not translucent or blue, he's just a memory from Kylo's tortured psyche obviously) was a pretty cool scene, echoing the end of TFA and giving "Kylo Ren" a satisfying conclusion before Ben Solo returns.
What I didn't really like (in no particular order) :
- Palpatine's zombie look was meh. And the acting was too hammy, a bit too much like ROTS Palpatine and not enough ROTJ Palpatine.
- The Sith "crowd" is unexplained.. was it all the ghosts of past Sith as implied by Palpatine? Sith adepts? It's not really explained.
- I didn't like Rey's origins. I expected she would be a Palpatine but her having parents kind of defeats the purpose of her visions in the dark side cave. I thought she would be a clone experiment done by Palpatine, and was abandonned on Jakku by a disloyal mook of Palpatine that took pity on a child... but her being the daughter of Palpatine's son is weird because if Palpatine was so insistent on having his grand-daughter taken to him as a child, why did he not do the same with his own son too? Why was his son able to roam the galaxy freely, marry a good woman, etc..? It just feels like a plot hole that didn't need to be there, especially since cloning is mentioned in the movie so we know it's not off the table, and we see Palpatine has been able to manufacture beings (Snoke).
- The space pony charge on the Star Destroyer was predictably retarded...but thankfully lasts only like 5 seconds which makes it all the more retarded because it was useless.
Yes. But that's pretty obvious, not sure how anyone could create these images otherwise. It'd be a really fucking amazing video editing job if it was fake.
Yes. But that's pretty obvious, not sure how anyone could create these images otherwise. It'd be a really fucking amazing video editing job if it was fake.
