Star Wars 7 Spoilers Thread: This SPOIL bath is going to feel so good.

Someone should start a spoilerific thread for the movie, maybe?

― Some Pizza Grudge From Twenty Years Ago (Old Lunch), Thursday, December 17, 2015 9:06 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Seeing it tonight at 11:55. Will have to come home and go to bed directly after, but I'll join the thread in the coming days.

Spoiler: the first thing you see after the crawl is a full-frontal nude shot of Harrison Ford getting into said oil bath. Callbacks!

Just checking out the etiquette of Spoiler threads here before posting.

Assume you don't need to give any warning in your post as basically you shouldn't be reading this thread if you haven't seen the film yet?

That is a safe assumption.

And, with that, I am out.

Still basking in the afterglow of this but immediate reaction - amazing!! Fights! Chases! Explosions! No parliamentary debates! Just 2 hours of great fun. Boyega and especially isaac were great and I'm quite in love with daisy Ridley. She was fantastic throughout.

Also omfg kylo ren!! I have been assiduously avoiding anything even approaching spoilers for this so I dunno if his identity was already well known but it came as a hell of a surprise to me and made him 100x more interesting as an antagonist. Bridge confrontation and outcome was another bid surprise

Supreme leader dude was pretty cool, an interesting design choice, would've preferred it if they'd shown less of his cgi face I think.

Yeah Supreme Leader CGI was on of the bum notes. Kept thinking he'd popped in from a Peter Jackson movie.

Ridley was fantastic.

Main gripe was that the plot was basically Episode IV all over again complete with beeping droid with secret plans, "orphan" from a desert planet and even the bridge scene with onlookers (as soon as that started I knew what was going to happen).

Still, an amazing, fun filled ride and I'm looking forward to seeing it again in a week or so with my kids.

I just saw this, and it was... okay. First half was definitely better than the second half, mostly because at least it had an original plot, whereas the second half was too much of a rehash of Episode IV, with some elements of VI thrown in (mostly that they had to get on the ground and neutralize the force field before the figher team can attack ). When they started planning on attacking the weak spot of Death Planet with TIE fighters, I was like, "Seriously? Are they really gonna do the same exact plot?". And they did, right down to the older mentor figure getting killed by his kid who had betrayed him (in IV Vader was Obi-Wan's kid figuratively, here Han gets killed by his actual kid). And then the Force prodigy has to go look for Yoda/Luke to become his/her mentor, etc. This was still way better than episodes I to III, but would it really hurt so much to come up with some new plot beats?

Some stray observations:

* Even though the attack against the Death Planet was modelled after the climaxes of IV and VI, it wasn't quite as gripping, and that was mostly because the stakes felt much lower. In the original movies the supporting pilots were nicely fleshed out, and the major characters had to go through some real danger and challenges before victory. But here the pilots, including Dameron Poe, were mere cyphers, and the victory was achieved way too easily. The Millenium Falcon team just magically gets through the planetary shield, waltzes inside the building while knocking a few guard and places their bombs, and the TIE figher guys easily blow up the planet. There was no proper stakes in any of it.

* Seriously, the Death Planet was laughably easy to infiltrate... Shouldn't it have much tighter security? And the whole concept felt like Abrams just wanted to make his superweapon bigger than the superweapon of the original, right down to a scene that literally shows how much bigger it is. It felt like two kids fighting over who's toy is cooler... "My Death Star can blow up a planet with one shot!" "So what, my Death Planet can blow up several planets with one shot!" "My Death Star is as big as moon!" "Well, mine is ten times bigger than yours!" It was just stupid.

* Part of the reason why the stakes in the climax felt lower than in IV or VI was because the villains were so non-scary. I understand that they want to have a character arc for Kylo Ren where he kills his dad and becomes more badass, but he was still the main villain for the movie, and at this point he a total woobie. They really, really shouldn't have had him take of his mask to show his emo face, because that diminished any sense of threat left in him. And they shouldn't have had Rey defeat him even though she was using a lightsaber for the the first time in her life. That made Kylo look like a weakass villain. Preferably, he should have had the upper hand throughout the whole fight, and Rey should've been saved by the earthquake just as Kylo was about to finish her, not the other way around.

* And then there was the other villain... Who apparently is called "Snoke"?! And who looks and acts like a giant Gollum on a throne?! Seriously, it felt like this guy belonged to some kids' cartoon, he was about as scary as Skeletor. I'm really, really hoping that the whole Gollum thing was a just a ruse (as he only appears via a hologram), and he turns something completely different, because as such he was lame as hell.

* On the plus side, the two main characters were much more interesting than the villains, and both actors nailed the roles. I kinda hoped they'd gotten even more focus, and the old fogeys from the original movies would've been just minor supporting characters... Though it's kinda understandable Harrison Ford got as much screentime as he did, given that this was the swan song of Han Solo.

* Han's death scene was about the only really suprising thing in the whole movie. It was to be expected that some of the old crew would kick the bucket at some point, but I don't think most people didn't expect it to happen so soon, I certainly didn't. The death scene was effective, and if they manage to use it to build up Kylo into a cool tragic villain, it was worth killing Han. But that remains to be seen, so far both Kylo and his actor were underwhelming.

* The biggest flaw in the movie, in my opinion, is not even the plot recycling, but the fact that it didn't work as a self-contained work at all. In the end nothing gets solved, pretty much every plot thread is left waiting for the sequels, but it doesn't even end with a whopping cliffhanger like Empire Strikes Back does. Compare that to the IV, which gives you a satisfying resolution while still leaving the plot open enough for sequels, and it seems the writers of VII weren't even good enough at imitating the earlier movies.

* And speaking of unresolved things, they do seem to be hinting that Rey is Luke's daughter, don't they? Even though R2-D2 had the part of the mystery map all along, why didn't it tell the others about it earlier? It seemed that R2 was waiting for Rey to join them, because it was supposed to reveal the map only then, so that she would be the one to go searching for Luke. Combine that with the mystery of Rey's missing parents, and it feels like we're heading towards, "Rey, I am your father". I hope they don't do that, because it would be too convenient for both the main baddie and the main hero to be kids of the previous trilogy's protagonists... I'd much prefer them to have identities of their own instead of just being Han Jr. and Luke Jr. I think it'd be much cooler if she really was just the daughter of poor scavengers, it's such a cliche (not to mention inherently elitist) that every hero needs to be secretly related to Important People.

Agree that this played it way too safe to be truly great but was still fun to watch and now that they've got all the fanservice and plot tropes out of the way the future episodes seem promising esp with how good the new leads were in this

one dud imo was having all the First Order people be younger dudes, they looked more like a bunch of star wars nerds playing out their childhood fantasies than a fearsome organization

also i was ready for luke to break out into 'what a fool believes' when he took off his hood at the end

I liked it, but Finn's incompetence at everything seemed like they were trying really hard to ensure he wouldn't come across as a Mary Sue, despite the fact that he's a total fan surrogate throughout.

The way they handled wiping out an entire star system and obliterating the capital of the New Republic (somewhere other than Coruscant, I assume?) felt rather trite. And the Resistance folks are like "oh shit, that means we're next" as opposed to "omg all of our families have just been murdered" - it seemed like they had to rush to get to the real stakes i.e. patricide

I mean honestly after Finn wakes up they should get him back on sanitation duty as soon as possible, that guy is no good at everything

Also I agree with Tuomas that Kylo is clearly utter shit with a lightsaber. If he would've stuck to massive force pushes and freezing people he'd have saved himself quite a few scars.

also I like how sometime in the 30 years that have passed lightsabers are apparently no longer capable of dismemberment, like I guess all the batteries are wearing out and nobody makes new ones anymore

Mixed feelings. Boyega, Ridley, Isaac, and Driver were very good. The light saber stuff was good. The segment where they first pilot the Falcon was very strong, as were the first few Han segments.

But most of the x-wing stuff and their assault didn't have much gravity. The attack on the death star in A New Hope was more of a nailbiter.

also I like how sometime in the 30 years that have passed lightsabers are apparently no longer capable of dismemberment, like I guess all the batteries are wearing out and nobody makes new ones anymore

Yeah, that was odd. Lightsabering someone's hand/arm off is such an inconic Star Wars motif that it was weird that they didn't include it in this one, given how reverent they were towards the original movies in general. They did have Han saying "I have a bad feeling about this", though.

they looked more like a bunch of star wars nerds playing out their childhood fantasies than a fearsome organization

I kind of feel like this might play out as intentional, eventually -- the imperial fragment that thought they needed a dark side leader has struck a bargain with something they did not anticipate and it's going to backfire

Luke as haunted failed teacher might have some mileage

Greg Grunberg as Porkins 2

one dud imo was having all the First Order people be younger dudes, they looked more like a bunch of star wars nerds playing out their childhood fantasies than a fearsome organization

I think this might've worked if they'd made the First Order into young fanatics, people who idealize the era of the Empire as a time of peace and order, because they're not old enough to remember what the reality of it was like. I guess something like this may still be developed in the later movies, given that Kylo seems to worship Darth Vader, even though he was born after he died. (And he must've learnt from his family and Uncle Luke that Vader eventually turned away from the dark side.) But in this movie we really don't learn anything about the First Order's motives, another flaw in building up it's villains. All we know that they're being lead by shadowy Giant Space Gollum, who's own motives remain equally unclear.

the republic exists but is mostly unseen, as they aren't concerned with this threat on the outer rim and an offshoot willing to keep the fight going is a "resistance"

Rey being attuned to the force from the start, the force finally kicking into balance after Luke runs off and an actual dark force creeps in. beginning the series with an adept who is quickly competent and a present dark apprentice who fumbles versus the Vader/Luke balance being very much the opposite

uh their motive is the empire was great and powerful and democracy sucks imo. fascism is exciting and its own end. it promises all the excitement that consensus rule doesn't iirc

the imperial fragment that thought they needed a dark side leader has struck a bargain with something they did not anticipate and it's going to backfire

Yeah, it seems kinda likely that Snoke is not what they think he is, and that he has other plans than merely becoming Emperor II. His whole ridiculous image, being a giant sitting on a throne of shadows, and the fact we never see him in flesh and blood, makes it seem that it's all an illusion, and in reality he's something unexpected.

Maybe Snoke is Luke?

Nah I bet he's like three feet tall

Snoke is Yoda Jr!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c1/Watto_EPI_TPM.png

Or this guy, finally getting his revenge on the Skywalker family after all these years!

so that speech Luke gave in the trailer.. what happened to that?!

the snow-y sabre stuff looked absolutely incredible in 3D.

the 3rd best SW movie though no doubt. *flew* by too.

Seriously though, I think it's perfectly possible that Snoke is actually a member of the same race as Yoda. They've thrown everything else from the original movies into the blender, so why not have an Evil Yoda as well?

(xpost)

I thought Kylo Ren removing his helmet was a great move. It brought sexual tension to his conflict with Rey without making it too rapey.

*flew* by too.

It's rare to say this about modern action movies, but I think this one could've benefitted from being a bit longer... If they'd fleshed out the X-Wing pilots a bit and made the infiltration and attack on the Death Planet feel more dangerous, with setbacks and reversals of fortune, it wouldn't have felt so weak compared to the episode IV and VI finales. Okay, the personal drama between Kylo/Han/Rey/Finn was reallly the meat there, and that worked nicely, but in VI they were able to do both personal drama and good space action at the same time, and they kinda failed at the latter in this one.

I thought Kylo Ren removing his helmet was a great move. It brought sexual tension to his conflict with Rey without making it too rapey.

Oh yeah, that one I actually liked. When they kidnapped Rey, and Finn was set on rescuing her, I feared they would go into Damsel in Distress territory, so it was cool that Rey actually saved herself. And there definitely were some intentional abusive vibes in the interrogation scene, so it was a great moment when Rey stood up against Kylo.

But IMO the confrontation with Han, and particularly the final lightsaber fight were the parts where seeing Kylo's emo face diminished him as a villain. I understand that he had to remove his helmet when he saw his dad, but I think it would've worked much better if he'd remained stone-faced throughout the scene instead of all this ACTING! And in the final fight, seeing him look so sad and scared, combined with the fact that he lost to a first-time light-saber user, just made him feel like a weak villain.

Thinking they're trying to say something about the nature of evil here that kinda goes against the prequel trilogy, no?
Adam Driver's Kylo Ren, lashing out at his equipment when the world doesn't fall into place for him seems so much more relatable than the stiff turns of Anakin Skywalker.
You could argue that it's all a bit too much of course but there's something refreshing about the fact that you get a real sense of this guy needing his mask to be truly evil. What we're seeing is him trying out what it would be like to be deliciously evil even without the mask hiding his true face - an internet troll's naked dream - but even with the patricide it feels like his plan doesn't work. He's still too vulnerable and passionate. But he'd prefer a life without the mask.

There's something about the naked quality of Rey's face - it's so open! - that goes into this tension too, I think. Kylo really wants to be like her, only bad.

Yeah, I can see what you're getting at, and like I said I can still imagine them building an interesting character arc for him, but the fact still is that he's the only villain in the movie who does anything important, so he needs to carry its conflict on his shoulders, and it doesn't quite work. If they'd given either Gollum or Tarkin Jr. more screentime, made either of them into the big baddie with Kylo as his right-hand man (like Tarkin/Vader in IV and Emperor/Vader in VI), then him being such a tragic and human character would've worked. But since he's the only significant villain, it fails, because a movie like this needs a proper Threat Personified.

But they want a vulnerable young man to be the face (!) of evil this time around, not an immovable old stone faced bastard. They're going for an Anders Behring Breivik kinda villain, obviously. And Breivik - a huge LOTR fan btw - didn't need a giant gollum to give him orders, outside of the projections of his own mind.

But this is not a realistic terrorist drama - I don't think Anders Behring Breivik works as the villain of an epic space fantasy. Different genres require different kinds of antagonists.

Well, Lucas tried to say something about the nature of evil so it's hardly unprecedented, and right now it's the behring breiviks that are threatening the west from within, not the paternalistic figures of Lucas's youth, so...

Actually I guess why this trilogy will be a synthesis of both the trilogies. It's Anakin revised that is the true innovation, radical enough to make the stabilization of this recognizable universe into a major concern for Abrams.

This was a really fun film. I liked this star wars film. I'm looking forward to another star wars film. STAR WARS!

Saw it last night. Just some scattered thoughts:

- Shooting on film in practical locations was definitely the right call. This film LOOKED terrific, with very few exceptions. After Empire it may be the best-looking of the films.

- My wife, no prequel-hater by a long shot, said, "Wow, I can't believe J.J. Abrams made a Star Wars movie that's more Star Wars-y than George Lucas did. He really seems to understand the universe of the movies a lot better than Lucas."

- Abrams knows who the real star of these movies is, too. The applause on the initial reveal of the Falcon (especially since he cleverly hid it offscreen during the "What about that ship?" exchange) was literally thunderous.

- I honestly thought that, if they were going to kill an OG character, it was going to be Chewbacca, since Mayhew is in his 70s and isn't up for the physicality of the part much longer. Killing Han was a bold choice, but one that satisfies the story beats, the fealty to the OT, and probably Ford's stipulations for agreeing to play the character again.

- Han and Leia naming their son "Ben" makes a lot more sense than naming their younger son "Anakin" in the EU. ("Ben" is Luke Skywalker's son in the EU.)

- My initial supposition that Luke would not show up until the very end of this film, which I posted on the "Shit Talk" thread, was confirmed; although I honestly thought for a second that after Threepio said "It would take a miracle now," he would show up during the Kylo/Rey fight. Not giving him even a single word of dialogue, thought? TROLL LEVEL: EXPERT

- Threepio doing a little lean-in during the Han/Leia reunion got a gigantic laugh. God bless Anthony Daniels.

- Abrams loves that imploding planet effect. RIP, Death Planet, may you and Vulcan meet in another life.

- Daisy Ridley is going to have little girls clamoring for her autograph for the rest of her life.

I could have done without Threepio altogether. I had forgotten that Daniels had been announced and I don't remember him showing up in the trailers. I understand it was a "let's get the gang back together" kinda deal.

I had also thought - going in - that Chewbacca was going to get offed. I had privately hypothesized that as the reason for Han and Leia's sad embrace in the trailer. And when he gets shot early on, I thought Finn would lose him while Rey and Solo are trying to fly the Falcon.

A lot to process, but my main takeaway is that the Abrams team got everything about casting right where the prequels team got it wrong. That made SO MUCH difference when I realized I actually liked, or at the very least wasn't indifferent to, all the people on the screen.

Oh, I didn't finish my thoughts on Threepio. He kinda took me out of it. I loved loved loved the movie, but 100% agree that there were too many throwbacks to the old movies and when he popped out that just kinda did it for me. Han and Chewie were perfect, and Luke's appearance at the end was full of portent. But I didn't really want to be wrapped up in "oh, look who's back!" kinda shit. The new cast had a very vital energy though and I liked the movie better when they were the focus.

Btw, what was that Kylo Ren say to Rey in the interrogation: "imagine an ocean, I am your island" or something like that while he's trying to pick her brain. That line was dope as hell and quickly glossed over, but then you have Luke at the end on an island in an ocean.

I wanted more Poe Dameron too. Yeah, he's a hotshot pilot so it makes sense that most of the time he's out there dogfighting most of the time, but the quick explanation of what happened to him after the tie fighter crash could have been shown, not told. Or told differently or something.

It might have just been me, but I kept thinking about Edna Mode from The Incredibles the whole time Maz Kanata was on the screen.

i liked it but a lot of this felt like it was abrams playing with a toy set lucas gave him and doing his own version of episode iv with the action figures and vehicles rather than coming up with a new movie. the coincidences necessary to drive the plot felt very little-kid-like too which is maybe the point but also prevented me from fully immersing. oh well. i bet if i were 10 i wouldn't care one bit

yeah i agree. when the Death Planet showed up I thought "oh theyre just going to make a reboot of A New Hope then?". too much pandering to the audience and a paucity of imagination. shit, theres tons of good writers who could have done something better surely

The sad thing was that the you couldn't tell from the first half that it was gonna be such a rehash. Sure, Rey's situation and the droid with secret plans were obvious Ep. IV throwbacks, but at that point it still felt like Search for Luke was gonna be the main plot, and I was really excited, because it would've given them a chance to show some more weird planets and cool aliens. And then the Death Planet shows up, and turns out it has secret weak spot, etc etc, and most of my initial enthusiasm died.

Yeah the Search for Luke would have been cool!

so long as Dame Judith Anderson still plays the Vulcan

It might have just been me, but I kept thinking about Edna Mode from The Incredibles the whole time Maz Kanata was on the screen.

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Friday, December 18, 2015 8:54 AM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was exactly my wife's comment!

Also re: the 3-D - STAR DESTROYERS: THEY FLY @ U FACE

Episode VIII: Obi-Wan is Back, Baby

loooooooool @ rey being anakin with facial reconstruction

The other Bad Lip Reading SW things on YT are awesome as well

The other mysterious flashback stuff seemed kinda straightforward IIRC - parents leaving her behind, promising to return sometime, but in fact they're never coming back.

But this flashback quite pointedly doesn't show us who the parents were or what they looked like... If it was simply a case of her parents being some random folks who left her behind, why not show them onscreen? And of course there's also the fact that Rey's family name is never mentioned, unlike with every other character in the movie. (Except Finn, but for him there's an obvious explanation for that.)

Rey.... Binks

Oh jesus.

Folks if finn turns out to be landos son we're gonna have to start a bombing campaign thats agreed right

I'm glad you thought this was the best one, I kinda do too. In one of these interviews with Lawrence Kasdan he talks about wanting to make it "delightful" and I think they really succeeded at that

my bet is that Rey is Palpatine's granddaughter

I mean with all the mirroring of the original trilogy, why wouldn't the hero turn out to be related to someone evil?

My bet is that daisy ridley is the first female 007 tbh

On a recent rewatch I found Kylo Ren to be kind of a lame villain, D. Gleeson's screeching speech before they let loose the StarKiller pretty laughable and a while bunch of other dead weight. That while scene with Kanji Club and the monsters and the angry Scots dude - oy.

*whole not "while"

Def. not the best SW film for me.

Seriously. It's like you guys have never seen Caravan of Courage.

xp Tell that to Kanjiclub.

Darth vader is a great villain. Luke skywalker is a fuckin terrible hero. Swings and roundabouts.

We'll leave prequel out, obv nobody's batting for them.

I like the monsters scene in the Falcon fine apart from the Scottish dude not being Jamie from The Thick Of It.

Yeah it's a good sequence. On rewatching, the third act is definitely the weakest, despite Han's death being handled well.

The Kanjiclub scene dangles these amazing martial arts actors in front of us and then doesn't deliver any martial arts. That's breaking some basic rule of showmanship.

Its like having alec guinness not act in the original trilogy tho

rey is imo a much better heroic figure than luke was though i don't think this was the best SW. i actually suspect luke in this trilogy might be more interesting than he was in the original films.

dude's gone through some serious shit

The Kanjiclub scene dangles these amazing martial arts actors in front of us and then doesn't deliver any martial arts. That's breaking some basic rule of showmanship.

Putting two Chekhov's Guns in the same situation (monsters, badasses) and then having only one go off seems like a very modern thing to do

tracer hand (and kasdan) otm re it being delightful

i think that is the best encapsulation

Darth vader is a great villain.

Was it in this thread or somewhere else that someone made the point that an evil father is also waaaay more scary than an evil son, which is more just sad

Part of the charm of Kyle Ren is that he's kind of a whiney chump. He doesn't come off as all powerful and menacing like Vader.

yeah

i love when he takes off his mask & rey is thrown, like "ooookay not hideously disfigured waht is happening"

yup, felt the same

Yeah plus Kylo works because we know and love his parents so much (compared to both Anakin/Padme and Anakin's boring Mom and her mysterious midichlorian lover). The challenge is how they provide him with something different to Vader's trajectory as a retread of that redemption is unlikely to be satisfying.

He's already had a different trajectory, to an extent, in that he wants the darkness but the light keeps/kept calling to him.

I think I probably said this upthread, but frustrated young man incapable of living up to their expectations of strength is a very Age Of Reddit take.

What with the actual vader helmet on the wall of his room, id say thats a fair take

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--1SwI03eU--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/c9al0cakdacwilvoslpj.gif

xpost it's not expanded upon that specifically - here's the passage: "Aided and abetted by restless, power-hungry individuals within the government, and the massive organs of commerce, the ambitious Senator Palpatine caused himself to be elected President of the Republic. He promised to reunite the disaffected among the people and to restore the remembered glory of the Republic. Once secure in office he declared himself Emperor, shutting himself away from the populace. Soon he was controlled by the very assistants and boot-lickers he had appointed to high office, and the cries of the people for justice did not reach his ears."

― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Monday, December 28, 2015 9:50 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hmm who does this sound like

Obama

the massive organs of commerce

hawt

I assume the sarlacc is constantly being used as a toilet.

― jmm, Monday, January 4, 2016 11:54 AM bookmarkflaglink

lol cackled at this classic today. thanking u

The crimes of JJ Abrams really quickly piled up into a larger heap than the cumulative crimes of George Lucas with this trilogy, didn't they

I never got round to seeing any of the sequels (Andor’s great, though). I’m not even particularly into Star Wars but I didn’t really feel like watching Luke and Han Solo die? It feels antithetical to my childhood idea of what the movies are (i.e. fixed to conclude at a particular point with a happy ending that lasts forever). Am curious about the Rian Hughes movie though

Er Rian Johnson I mean

The people who like the JJ ones best seem to hate it, which maybe tells you all you might need to know!

It was definitely my favourite, if not essential.

it's the most interesting one, though after seeing it again i wouldn't say it's really that good. what puts it above the other two is the fact that RJ is a good director and there are a couple of stunning "big moments" which are among the best of the whole franchise. But in the end virtually the entire film is cancelled out and discarded by Abrams' backpedaling in the third film. the whole trilogy is so disjointed and incoherent, it's probably safe to regard it as non-canon.

The crimes of JJ Abrams really quickly piled up into a larger heap than the cumulative crimes of George Lucas with this trilogy, didn't they

― omar little, Thursday, August 3, 2023 12:34 PM bookmarkflaglink

disagree. Force Awakens is a fine movie, I enjoyed Rise of Skywalker as poorly as it was written, but ultimately these felt like star wars movies, whereas Lucas outright lost the ability to write an enjoyable tale or build engaging characters (other than the ones he'd already established in 4-6). Dialogue was execrable to the point where it spawned about 100 memes that STILL circulate to this day, Phantom Menace included the most boring trade blockage subplot in history and was abysmal visually. and Anakin's character arc was massacred. I still enjoy Ep 3 but even that one is flawed af, I just appreciate the darker tone.

I watched Eps 7 and 9 recently and they held up fine as a fun watch, but I can't even finish Eps 1-2.

yeah same

wait a minute, well *i* disagree. TFA "felt" like a Star Wars film but i think ultimately the shallowness of the narrative, the directionless tale that was told, betrayed a lack of confidence. and it was a problem to have a story that wasn't told organically from the seeds up to the top of the tree, but rather simply having new characters and different places draped ill-fittingly over the skeletal framework of a previously told tale, which was rearranged just enough that it couldn't be called theft, but not enough that it could be called original. not that Lucas didn't steal from some sources, but there was verisimilitude to his tale. the prequel trilogy is more mediocre than good, but more good than bad, and i think much of that comes from the clean, precise storyline, which has some genuinely awkward moments and not-good characters, and dreadful dialogue, but feels like the weird and pure vision of a specifically odd big budget filmmaker, and not the tale told by a focus group via a board of directors, executed by the guy who did Star Trek wrong, and made Mission Impossible boring.

BUT at least TFA has a solid first half before the derivative chaos of the second half.

I'll put it this way - can anybody summarize what actually happens in Phantom Menace outside of "Palpatine begins his nefarious work to ascend the political ladder, Qui-Gonn is killed, and Anakin is discovered?". because there's a lot of complicated, dull political mess that tbh feels like three filler episodes of Clone Wars before that show got good.

Lucas said the prequel trilogy was meant to be Anakin's character arc, which should have been great, but Lucas went and did it through a really awkward love story that didn't hold together. having Anakin be almost a secondary player in Phantom to time-jumping 10 years to teen Anakin being a lecherous perv who already seems to have demons means we never really understand why he's so borderline psychotic in Attack of the Clones, because all of that development happened off-screen. think it would have been better if they just started in the first film with him already being a teen Padawan and coming in contact with nefarious influences for the first time then going back all the way to childhood.

and as much as I do enjoy Revenge of the Sith, there were so many much more interesting angles Lucas could have taken, such as being brainwashed into thinking the Jedi were trying to take over the Republic, but instead they turned it into an awkward love story where he's so afraid of her dying in childbirth he learns dark powers. his motivation for turning is almost incomprehensible - he desperately needs Palpatine to show him the dark side powers to save Padme, yet first he decides to tell Mace Windau and go with him to apprehend Palpatine, knowing he'll either be killed, or imprisoned and unwilling to help Anakin since he betrayed him anyway. the fuck did he think was going to happen? and then after Windau is killed, he simultaneously in 5 minutes goes from reluctantly killing Windau to believing every anti-Jedi conspiracy theory. It feels like two parts of different films, like two screenplays were merged.

like one minute, he's begging Mace not to make him kill him, the next he's willfully slaughtering a bunch of kids without hesitation.

tbh they should have started the trilogy where Attack of the Clones began and put all three films in a much more compressed time period.

i don't know how sad it is that I just used my afternoon break at work to write this.

i don't necessarily think the complexity of the plot (i will also accept incoherence) is a negative counterpoint to the disjointed, made-up-along-the-way narrative of the sequel trilogy, but obviously the flaws in the prequels run deep. sometimes though i think it's a case of lucas overreaching where he should have simplified it. they at least don't feel like desperation ploys to the fairweather audience.

i'm too old for this shit though.

*breaks away from thinking about the upcoming Ahsoka series* Sorry, did you all say something?

I still wonder how things might have turned out if Lucas hadn’t backed away from the “dark Jar Jar” idea.

As ridiculous as it is I really enjoy the big pulpy space opera nonsense of Rise Of Skywalker the best out of the three sequels.