STAR WARS! STAR WARS! STAR WARS

Chucktshoes said:
The pairing up of JJ and RJ was a huge mistake. They didn’t just have differing creative visions, they had conflicting ones. JJ is a derivative filmmaker interested in providing the audience exactly what they are wanting and expecting. RJ made it explicit multiple times he sought to “subvert expectations” and regardless whether one liked one approach or the other, they did not mesh well in the least.
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I agree, and don’t forget Trevorrow was in that cocktail as well. My initial reaction was bewilderment, none of them are remotely similar. Trevorrows blockbusters are way tackier than JJs, and he has serious gender blindspots so I’m certain he would have been a bigger disaster.

Still I think it could have worked if not for the tug of war. Alfonso Cuarón moved a lot of Hogwarts around and switched up the mise en scene and tone for his Harry Potter film. It works because when Newell came in for Goblet he let that stuff lie rather than moving it back again. Either way the filmmakers were set up to fail by the studio system.
 
Chucktshoes said:
The pairing up of JJ and RJ was a huge mistake. They didn’t just have differing creative visions, they had conflicting ones. JJ is a derivative filmmaker interested in providing the audience exactly what they are wanting and expecting. RJ made it explicit multiple times he sought to “subvert expectations” and regardless whether one liked one approach or the other, they did not mesh well in the least.
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yeah, I agree with you.
 
AudioAce said:
Guy had an idea and really, really wanted to stick to it. He sacrificed what was done in that movie so he could piece together a movie that had his original idea. I don't know if thats good or bad honestly. He should of stuck around for episode 8 and done the whole trilogy himself.

I don't think their is an outcome where you please everyone. Even if one were to ignore the bigots and clowns who held negative racial or sexist opinions people would still be mad about something. This franchise will always have that. It seems ingrained in the culture now to find something wrong in them.


I like episode 7 and enjoyed episode 8. The only one I don't really care for is 2. I don't really know how I feel about episode 9 yet. I gotta watch it again before I know how I feel. It was fun at least.
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I think it’s hard to make that assumption that this was some sort of plan derailed by Johnson. JJ has been pretty friendly in the press to Rian’s ideas, and I’m not so convinced the answers this film provides are what he had in mind in TFA. In fact based on what we know about his approach to LOST from what Lindelof dishes out, he likely didn’t have answers at the time.

Who’s to say where the blame lies with the sidelining, JJ, Terrio, the studio, but including her instead of new characters would have felt a little more genuine, sort of like how Lando has a lot less screentime in ROTJ but still leads the charge on the DS II as a general, or how Jar Jar gets to be a representative of Naboo.

Overall you can only blame poor planning as you suggest vs any one filmmaker.
 
zombie.modernist said:
I think it’s hard to make that assumption that this was some sort of plan derailed by Johnson. JJ has been pretty friendly in the press to Rian’s ideas, and I’m not so convinced the answers this film provides are what he had in mind in TFA. In fact based on what we know about his approach to LOST from what Lindelof dishes out, he likely didn’t have answers at the time.

Who’s to say where the blame lies with the sidelining, JJ, Terrio, the studio, but including her instead of new characters would have felt a little more genuine, sort of like how Lando has a lot less screentime in ROTJ but still leads the charge on the DS II as a general, or how Jar Jar gets to be a representative of Naboo.

Overall you can only blame poor planning as you suggest vs any one filmmaker.
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I thought this movie had a lot of JJs worst tendencies on display, but I also think that can be blamed on the incredibly short production cycle. There were a lot of first-draft ideas here.

The movie needed to be bumped a year.
 
mdmost said:
Rose being sidelined in this movie was 100% a reaction to the negativity her character received after TLJ from "fans" as was
making Rey a Palpatine which obviously was never in the cards from JJ or he would've told Rian Johnson exactly that
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So, the co-writer said that your spoiler point was actually one of the last things JJ cut from the force awakens. Cause they felt they were trying to cram too much into the one movie. You don’t have to like it, but it’s disingenuous to describe it the way that you did.
 
kvetcha said:
Not in the least. Something can be fan service and also serve a narrative and thematic purpose within the film,
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But aren’t you using “fan service” as a pejorative? Why would something that serves “narrative and thematic purpose within the film,” be something that you’d find pejorative? Unless it’s just you don’t like the narrative or thematic purpose, I’m very confused.
 
zombie.modernist said:
Well I'm suggesting it's a trickled down term, the anime misogyny is just the origin. It's really just content that winks at the audience (in that case younger male, but in this case just SW obsessives) and the larger cultural conversation beyond the media itself.

For me that moment was just poorly placed and one too many as @kvetcha suggests in a huge platter of them. It's funny because it's something that made the friend I went with (more casual fan) go "huh?" as it's such a SW nerd joke. That's really my point with some of this stuff, it's not really a callback because the reference point isn't even in the media itself, so at that point its a speed bump in the film that got a cheer from one member in my audience. Even though I "got it" these nods to online conversations and fan theories that felt off to me as it didn't feel genuine to this story, and particularly made me groan because

characters actually featured in this trilogy especially Rose got the finger from the filmmakers.
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kvetcha said:
Sucks to his creative vision.
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I mean have you seen Lost? Don’t.
 
JonnyH said:
But aren’t you using “fan service” as a pejorative? Why would something that serves “narrative and thematic purpose within the film,” be something that you’d find pejorative? Unless it’s just you don’t like the narrative or thematic purpose, I’m very confused.
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Something can function both as fan service and a valuable part of the movie. Abrams generally forgets the second part.
 
kvetcha said:
Something can function both as fan service and a valuable part of the movie. Abrams generally forgets the second part.
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Who gets to decide the value though?

And this brings me back to my question about fan service and how it sounds like, “fan service is when I don’t like thing,” does it not?
 
zombie.modernist said:
I agree, and don’t forget Trevorrow was in that cocktail as well. My initial reaction was bewilderment, none of them are remotely similar. Trevorrows blockbusters are way tackier than JJs, and he has serious gender blindspots so I’m certain he would have been a bigger disaster.

Still I think it could have worked if not for the tug of war. Alfonso Cuarón moved a lot of Hogwarts around and switched up the mise en scene and tone for his Harry Potter film. It works because when Newell came in for Goblet he let that stuff lie rather than moving it back again. Either way the filmmakers were set up to fail by the studio system.
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Speaking of the tug of war, I find it curious how folks who liked TLJ are grousing about the abandoned plot threads in ROS but didn’t have much, if any, problem with the way TLJ did that to almost all of the setups from TFA. Regardless of what either JJ or RJ may say about each other’s ideas in the press, the proof is in the pudding of the films regarding what they actually thought. That seemed to carry through with the fans of their respective SW outings.
 
JonnyH said:
Who gets to decide the value though?

And this brings me back to my question about fan service and how it sounds like, “fan service is when I don’t like thing,” does it not?
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I’ve pretty clearly delineated that my complaint is with fan service for the sake of itself, which is entirely different from what you’re suggesting.

Chucktshoes said:
Speaking of the tug of war, I find it curious how folks who liked TLJ are grousing about the abandoned plot threads in ROS but didn’t have much, if any, problem with the way TLJ did that to almost all of the setups from TFA. Regardless of what either JJ or RJ May say about each other’s ideas in the press, the proof is in the pudding of the films regarding what they actually thought.
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I wouldn’t have cared if JJ had crafted a story that was worth a damn. The movie felt like a checklist of every idea they brainstormed the first day in the writer’s room.
 
kvetcha said:
I’ve pretty clearly delineated that my complaint is with fan service for the sake of itself, which is entirely different from what you’re suggesting.
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Does that mean you decide the value?
 
Chucktshoes said:
Speaking of the tug of war, I find it curious how folks who liked TLJ are grousing about the abandoned plot threads in ROS but didn’t have much, if any, problem with the way TLJ did that to almost all of the setups from TFA. Regardless of what either JJ or RJ may say about each other’s ideas in the press, the proof is in the pudding of the films regarding what they actually thought. That seemed to carry through with the fans of their respective SW outings.
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A second movie in a trilogy is almost designed to have open threads. It’s the third movie that is responsible for tying it in a bow for us.

I had questions after the last Jedi, but hey- there’s another movie coming. They’ll get to it there- was my hope.

When the third movie of a trilogy ends and you still have loose threads then you point at them and say, “well, I guess we’ll never know.”

I liked all 3 of these movies however.
 
kvetcha said:
If by that you mean ‘do I want my movies to be more than a hollow nostalgia delivery vehicle,’ I guess yes?
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That’s not my question, but this answer does appear to answer my question. So thank you.
 
JonnyH said:
That’s not my question, but this answer does appear to answer my question. So thank you.
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Sorry, I've been down with the flu the last two days, I'm not in the greatest mood.

To answer your question more directly: of course I decide the value with regards to my opinion of the film. But at the same time, there are generally accepted standards of storytelling by which TRoS was deficient. TFA and TLJ were both jam-packed with fan service as well, but you could strip that away and still have a movie underneath. Not sure that's the case here.
 
JonnyH said:
I mean have you seen Lost? Don’t.
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Yeah LOST is a great example. Lindelof said the hatch was JJ’s idea, a powerful image and interesting problem for the cast to open. When Lindelof asked JJ what was in the hatch he said he had no clue but had faith they would figure it out later on. Then he dipped to do MI III lol.

I think Rian really did similar stuff to what Damon did with LOST. Sure Damon came up with all the Dharma crap, but really the story of the hatch is one of Desmonds isolation and routine. It wasn’t really about the mystery being solved but using the mystery as another avenue to tell the story. I liked that about TLJ too, mysteries aren’t solved with scifi answers.
 
JonnyH said:
A second movie in a trilogy is almost designed to have open threads. It’s the third movie that is responsible for tying it in a bow for us.

I had questions after the last Jedi, but hey- there’s another movie coming. They’ll get to it there- was my hope.

When the third movie of a trilogy ends and you still have loose threads then you point at them and say, “well, I guess we’ll never know.”

I liked all 3 of these movies however.
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It is, but TLJ didn’t just leave threads from TFA unanswered, it closed them with a dismissive toss over the shoulder by some drunk junk traders. These setups were intended to be major threads through the entire trilogy and that was shown by JJ retconning so much of TLJ to come back to that story.
 
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