Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 1:21 am

I feel like I'm the odd man out on Star Wars because to me all of the series is about the same in quality overall where it seems every other person thinks some set of the films are considerably worse/better than another set. Episode 1 and 8 are the only ones that stand out to me as particularly worse and that's more for narrative reasons than anything else.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 3:18 am

So where does Thanos fit into this storyline

Best comment from that video.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 6:03 am

Prak wrote:It's a shame that the new trilogy seems to be turning out to be so completely confusing, since other than that, it's been a lot better than the prequel trilogy (and, in my personal opinion, better than the original trilogy, but that's more to do with it jiving with my particular taste in movies).

Mguy wrote:I feel like I'm the odd man out on Star Wars because to me all of the series is about the same in quality overall where it seems every other person thinks some set of the films are considerably worse/better than another set.

You should both test the thing you've just said. Lucas has made his films much worse every time he gets to touch them but it's still possible to watch New Hope (or just "Star Wars" as it was called originally) without his special edition shenanigans. You should try to find it then watch it and see if what you've just said still feels true to you. Frankly if you can watch original Star Wars and then a prequel or whatever and judge them to be about the same you're basically immune to cinema quality which should be a thing you can use to your benefit. The original star wars is a nigh perfect film. On release it was nominated in 11 oscar categories and won 7 of them. AFI ranks it as one of the greatest films in american history. It is preserved in the Smithsonian and changed American culture. In contrast the prequels average about a 65% on Rotten Tomatoes between them. No prequel film has won an oscar (no Star Wars film has since the originals). They are considered critically and culturally disappointing and people use phrases like "As bad as the prequels" as a frequent punchline. By virtually every measure these films are not equals.

There are actually whole nations you can point to as proof of the superiority of the originals. China, for instance, did not have the original Star Wars films released there but they have had every Star Wars film since Phantom Menace released and China does not give one single fuck about Star Wars. In the same year Fast and Furious made almost 400 Million in ticket sales in China the Last Jedi made less than 40 million. Next year Solo made 16 Million. China doesn't give a fuck about Star Wars cause star wars has just been a series of ok-at-best films to them. The entire Star Wars film industry has been running on nostalgia fuel for over 30 years.

We like to say art is subjective and can't be measured but that's not really quite true. Things are measured in the collective emotional responses they can bring from humans over time with some extra weight given to experts within the field. Art that is critically and culturally praised, especially through the generations, is considered great art. Some things like Beethoven that have been critically and culturally praised for hundreds of years are considered some of the greatest art of our species. Simply put me burping into a microphone is not equal to "Imagine". As much as art is measured in any aspect Imagine is better than my burp and Star Wars is better than the 21st century followups. If you can watch Star Wars and a prequel and sincerely think "This is the same. These are equal" you can probably save yourself lots of money on movie tickets because vine compilations are out there and should be just as good.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 6:36 am

I thought they killed all the Skywalkers. Like, literally all of them. Calling the last one "The Rise of Skywalker" seems kind of dumb.

But the bottom line I think is that despite the fact that I thought Rogue One was a really great movie, I haven't even watched Solo or Last Jedi. I just don't care anymore, and I no longer feel like I need to see Star Wars movies.

When Star Wars was two fantastic movies and an OK movie, it was culturally important to see all the major Star Wars releases. But the prequels were bad, and the reboot sequel trilogy got off to a really dumb start that I can't bring myself to give a shit about.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 6:46 am

Dean wrote:
Prak wrote:It's a shame that the new trilogy seems to be turning out to be so completely confusing, since other than that, it's been a lot better than the prequel trilogy (and, in my personal opinion, better than the original trilogy, but that's more to do with it jiving with my particular taste in movies).
Mguy wrote:I feel like I'm the odd man out on Star Wars because to me all of the series is about the same in quality overall where it seems every other person thinks some set of the films are considerably worse/better than another set.
You should both test the thing you've just said. Lucas has made his films much worse every time he gets to touch them but it's still possible to watch New Hope (or just "Star Wars" as it was called originally) without his special edition shenanigans. You should try to find it then watch it and see if what you've just said still feels true to you. Frankly if you can watch original Star Wars and then a prequel or whatever and judge them to be about the same you're basically immune to cinema quality which should be a thing you can use to your benefit. The original star wars is a nigh perfect film. On release it was nominated in 11 oscar categories and won 7 of them. AFI ranks it as one of the greatest films in american history. It is preserved in the Smithsonian and changed American culture. In contrast the prequels average about a 65% on Rotten Tomatoes between them. No prequel film has won an oscar (no Star Wars film has since the originals). They are considered critically and culturally disappointing and people use phrases like "As bad as the prequels" as a frequent punchline. By virtually every measure these films are not equals.

I'm also a pariah because I prefer the Hobbit trilogy to the LotR trilogy. I like shiny action. I only said that the new trilogy was better than the original in my personal opinion.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 7:36 am

Yeah, liking the Hobbit Trilogy over the LotR Trilogy is objectively wrong.

There are certainly some good things in the Hobbit movies. But there's a lot of just... bad stuff. There's sections where the music doesn't go in right because they re-used pieces that were legit written for different things. There's stuff where the CGI battles just look bad because they were rushed for time and just shipped it "as is." There's awkward tonal shifts because of last minute rewrites to expand 2 movies of material into 3 movies. The Hobbit Movies do not hold up to repeated viewings the way the LotR movies do because they just aren't put together with as much care or craft.

They are just worse. Measurably worse. I won't say that people who "like them anyway" are wrong, and I won't say that the people for whom those drawbacks piss them off enough that they don't like them are wrong either. But if you rate The Hobbit movies above the Lord of the Ring movies you are simply wrong.

Taste can in fact be right and wrong. And yours is wrong.

-Username17

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 7:56 am

FrankTrollman wrote:I thought they killed all the Skywalkers. Like, literally all of them. Calling the last one "The Rise of Skywalker" seems kind of dumb.

But the bottom line I think is that despite the fact that I thought Rogue One was a really great movie, I haven't even watched Solo or Last Jedi. I just don't care anymore, and I no longer feel like I need to see Star Wars movies.

When Star Wars was two fantastic movies and an OK movie, it was culturally important to see all the major Star Wars releases. But the prequels were bad, and the reboot sequel trilogy got off to a really dumb start that I can't bring myself to give a shit about.

-Username17

Adam Driver is the last Skywalker. Unless Rey is a double secret Skywalker too.

And yeah, agreed on overall feeling apathetic towards Star Wars.

The most baffling thing I've seen said about this trailer was someone saying that "Rey is a Skywalker" would be a boring predictable reveal a la "Luke, I am your father." I don't even know where to start with the lack of awareness on this.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 8:12 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Yeah, liking the Hobbit Trilogy over the LotR Trilogy is objectively wrong.

There are certainly some good things in the Hobbit movies. But there's a lot of just... bad stuff. There's sections where the music doesn't go in right because they re-used pieces that were legit written for different things. There's stuff where the CGI battles just look bad because they were rushed for time and just shipped it "as is." There's awkward tonal shifts because of last minute rewrites to expand 2 movies of material into 3 movies. The Hobbit Movies do not hold up to repeated viewings the way the LotR movies do because they just aren't put together with as much care or craft.

They are just worse. Measurably worse. I won't say that people who "like them anyway" are wrong, and I won't say that the people for whom those drawbacks piss them off enough that they don't like them are wrong either. But if you rate The Hobbit movies above the Lord of the Ring movies you are simply wrong.

Taste can in fact be right and wrong. And yours is wrong.

-Username17

And funny enough, I don't give a shit.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 8:19 am

I definitely don't subscribe to any kind of objective measurement for art whether it be how a lot of people feel about them (which can be hard to measure) or anything like that. I think that cinema academia is interesting. That stuff doesn't mean anything to me either since I'm both not into any of it beyond some interesting videos I've seen recently over the subject. I only really care about how 'I' feel about any given piece of entertainment and any nostalgia I have for Star Wars comes more from the games than from any of the movies. KOTOR 1 and 2 are the star wars stories that tickle my nostalgia bone not anything from any of the mainline movies. I've seen a lot of arguments about why the original trilogy are the only competently made movies and hey, I can't say I'd disagree but they don't mean much to me.

That being said I retract my earlier statement. E 5 is probably the only one that I still find the most entertaining out of the whole mainline movie series so the originals would win by default since 1 and 8 are the only ones that stand out as bad in my memory as opposed to everything else that kind of felt 'ok'. The last time I watched them in a marathon was back in 2015 so maybe in the last few nightmare years my memory is failing me and my opinion might've changed but I don't think it would have changed that much. I don't think watching New Hope will leave me with feelings like watching Bladerunner 2049 did. I didn't care about bladerunner even though I saw and remembered the first one but the last one definitely 'felt' good to me even if I couldn't academically explain what made it good.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 10:56 am

Longes wrote:Adam Driver is the last Skywalker. Unless Rey is a double secret Skywalker too.

And yeah, agreed on overall feeling apathetic towards Star Wars.

The most baffling thing I've seen said about this trailer was someone saying that "Rey is a Skywalker" would be a boring predictable reveal a la "Luke, I am your father." I don't even know where to start with the lack of awareness on this.

Leia is still alive and is also a skywalker, so I don't even kind of know what is going on with the last skywalker stuff.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 11:10 am

Kaelik wrote:
Longes wrote:Adam Driver is the last Skywalker. Unless Rey is a double secret Skywalker too.

And yeah, agreed on overall feeling apathetic towards Star Wars.

The most baffling thing I've seen said about this trailer was someone saying that "Rey is a Skywalker" would be a boring predictable reveal a la "Luke, I am your father." I don't even know where to start with the lack of awareness on this.
Leia is still alive and is also a skywalker, so I don't even kind of know what is going on with the last skywalker stuff.

While I would not put it past Disney to puppeteer Carrie Fisher's body as a grotesque digital revenant, I do not think Leia will be a major player in Episode 9.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 11:17 am

Longes wrote:While I would not put it past Disney to puppeteer Carrie Fisher's body as a grotesque digital revenant, I do not think Leia will be a major player in Episode 9.

I mean, sure Carrie Fisher isn't around, but like, whatever excuse they are going to use for her not being there, she's in another city, she died off screen, whatever, it probably is going to be pretty stupid and I would avoid drawing attention to it.

Thaluikhain · Post by **Thaluikhain** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 4:43 pm

Prak wrote:I'm also a pariah because I prefer the Hobbit trilogy to the LotR trilogy.

I've not seen anyone else say that, I don't suppose you could explain why?

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 5:05 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:My first takeaway is that it looks like the entire film is a middle finger to Rian Johnson.

That is the marketing angle they need to hit if they want me to see this in theaters. However this preview does not hit that angle hard enough or literal enough to sell me.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 6:04 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote:
angelfromanotherpin wrote:My first takeaway is that it looks like the entire film is a middle finger to Rian Johnson.
That is the marketing angle they need to hit if they want me to see this in theaters. However this preview does not hit that angle hard enough or literal enough to sell me.

They can't take that marketing angle - the fanbase is too split to alienate half of them.

Emerald · Post by **Emerald** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 6:33 pm

Longes wrote:Adam Driver is the last Skywalker. Unless Rey is a double secret Skywalker too.

I'm expecting Kylo and Rey to turn out to be secret fraternal twins separated at birth who only find out about their shared parentage in the third movie of the trilogy after the second movie gave them some awkward sexual tension and a revelation about the protagonist's true parentage, because TFA and TLJ didn't have a single original thought between them that wasn't shit and I don't expect Abrams to start coming up with novel ideas now.

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:24 pm

Prak wrote: I'm also a pariah because I prefer the Hobbit trilogy to the LotR trilogy. I like shiny action. I only said that the new trilogy was better than the original in my personal opinion.

It's been decades since I watched the Hobbit, but the live action trilogy was a road trip movie that lasted over 11 hours, because they cut out large portions.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:14 pm

Iduno wrote:
Prak wrote: I'm also a pariah because I prefer the Hobbit trilogy to the LotR trilogy. I like shiny action. I only said that the new trilogy was better than the original in my personal opinion.
It's been decades since I watched the Hobbit, but the live action trilogy was a road trip movie that lasted over 11 hours, because they cut out large portions.

It could not have been decades since you watched the Hobbit, because Peter Jackson's Hobbit came out 7 years ago.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:21 pm

Unless he meant this:

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:49 pm

virgil wrote:Unless he meant this:

That would be the only thing that makes sense.

Because you could have real reasons to prefer that film to LOTR, mostly based on what type of thing you wanted to watch, since unlike the shitty Hobbit trilogy, that movie is actually a very different genre/experience than LOTR 10 hour epic.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Apr 15, 2019 5:09 pm

I did kind of like the first of the Hobbit trilogy. It was more cartoonish, it had dwarf songs, it was a lot of fun. You could see bits of that in the other two, but it seemed like an inferior version of LotR. Also I would have kept Tauriel but told Legolas to piss off.

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Mon Apr 15, 2019 6:28 pm

Yes, that was the thing. I guess I could have called the LotR trilogy "non-animated" instead of "live action" to be clearer, but went with the normal parlance instead.

I seem to have missed the live action Hobbit coming out, but I also didn't sleep much during the first half of that year.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Tue Apr 16, 2019 2:54 am

I thought the first live action Hobbit was okay, and somewhat fun at a few points.

The second one was watchable. Ish. Despite what anyone else thinks, the 7th Doctor using rabbits to outrun orcs is objectively the single best thing that has ever been put to film.

The third one, though... dear fucking god that was awful. Peter Jackson should've had his LA privileges revoked for that.

My only real problem with the first two is that, besides Thorin, all the dwarves were pretty much interchangeable. But then again, they were in the original book, too, so it's a wash.

Thaluikhain · Post by **Thaluikhain** » Tue Apr 16, 2019 4:53 am

I liked the first one, though there were certainly problems. You had the epic goblin fighting flashback which clashed wuth the silly goblin fighting in goblintown, re-use of the Nazgul theme, and the annoying bit near the beginning where the goblins hear the dwarfs, turn to look at where the noise is coming from, and one of them says something and it has to be subtitled to make it very clear that they've heard the dwarfs. We get it.

Also, if you are going to add long Legolas bits, why not a short Arwen cameo given that they hang around at her dad's house for a bit. Seems an odd thing to not do.

And, was expecting a lot more Necromancer stuff, rather than padding out the last movie with fail.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Apr 16, 2019 6:47 am

Yeah, I think the first of the three Hobbits is buying a lot of goodwill for the whole trilogy from me. I remember the first one was very enjoyable, but the other two I literally cannot remember much of. And I'd say that my reasons for that are largely the same as Count's. The Hobbit was fucking fun. LotR was just a fucking slog