Star Wars

[redebreck]

Ah right, fair do's! A quick overview for you then:

Original Trilogy
Star Wars (which was retconned to be called Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope)
The Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi

This is the classic trilogy, the one that shaped the childhoods of millions (including me). Interestingly, after George Lucas directed the first movie he showed it to loads of his film making buddies (Spielberg, De Palma, Coppola, Scorsese) who basically helped him out in the edit to put together the final cut. Empire and Jedi were produced by Lucas, and based on his story; but written and directed by others.

Prequel Trilogy
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

Otherwise known as the 'Binks' trilogy. Lucas took back the reins and did all the writing and directing for this (aside from the script for Attack of the Clones) and proved beyond all doubt that he is a visionary with a huge need for an editor (like George RR Martin, or Vince McMahon). Shitty exposition (midichlorians anyone?), clunky dialogue (Anakin / Padme love story) over-reliance on CGI (Yoda vs Count Dooku) and horrible characters (the afore-mentioned Jar Jar Binks) basically ruined the most eagerly anticipated movie events of all time at that point.

The Disneyfication of Star Wars
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi
Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

And thus we arrive at the current crop, JJ Abrams didn't do a terrible job with The Force Awakens (although not without some notable issues), it was basically a more diversely cast remake of the original Star Wars, whereas Rian Johnson made an utter car-wreck of a movie in The Last Jedi. The Rise of Skywalker is due out this Christmas, but we'll have to see how that does in the face of the current Star Wars fatigue going around; which brings us to...

Shameless Disney Cash-Ins
Rogue One
Solo: A Star Wars Story

Rogue One wasn't bad, probably the best outing since Disney took over Star Wars - the only problems with it were that it lasted probably 20 minutes or so too long and the cast had two or three characters too many. Solo was just boring, somehow managed to make one of the most beloved, charismatic characters in cinema history into an absolute non-entity. And it had Emilia Clarke in it, which is always a terrible thing for a film.



I agree with you totally there as far as the films go, but I do like the look of The Mandalorian from the trailer, and Ewan MacGregor doing an Obi-Wan series could work too as he was one of the very few good things in the prequel trilogy.

Brilliant synopsis. Many thanks.

[redebreck]

I don't get why they've not done Obi Wan spin offs yet. However many they make, they'll be successful. We love Ewan!

I'm quietly excited for what kind of animations they come up with. Rebels was… eh… not terrible, but clearly aimed at a younger audience. However, they're making a season 7 of "The clone wars" and while that series started poorly, its quality skyrocketed after season 3/4 - the storylines improved drastically and the CGI buget went through the roof. Can't wait honestly. Think they've announced they're working on another show as well.

This is quite important to me since to this day the best piece os Star Wars I've seen is Genndy Tartakowski's Clone Wars mini-series from the early 2000's. And I'm including the original trilogy in this. What a fenomenal piece of visual art that is. The whole thing is on youtube if anyone is interested - glorious 2d animation, beautiful music and more fleshed out characters than in any of the non-original trilogies. It's only a total of two hours or so long too, so it's a quick watch.

Have any of you seen Taff Wars on Youtube (assuming they haven't all been banned)?

[teesred]

Didn't even see Soylo - was it as bland as everyone says?

Solo is quality. Watch it and see. It gets unfairly panned because it didnt do as well as expected. The back story of Chewie and Han is good. Theres a few naff characters but all the new movies have a couple in each of them.

[jozza800]

I'm an unashemed Star Wars fan and though the Madelorian trailer looked great! Appollo Creed in Star Wars. What more do want!

I really enjoyed the Force Awakens and Rogue One. They were solid films that certainly looked the part. The special effects (as well as some awful writing and acting/casting) ruined the Prequals. The often most derided TPM was probably the one I most enjoyed.

The Last Jedi had some interesting concepts and again looked pretty but the execution was appalling. It basically ended the story for everyone. If JJ Abrams manages to put together any kind of corehent finish to the 9 films he'll deserve all the Oscars as TLJ left him with very little wiggle room.

Solo was just brown. It was so dull to look at. All of the locations were mono tone, grey, brown and very bland. The story was ok but you have to go some to make Star Wars look bland.

Neither trailers for The Rise Of Skywalker (awful name) have me particularly excited. Compared to the excellent trailers for TLJ these are just very poor - so the film will probably be excellent!

Some fan theories suggesting that time travel will be involved and that Disney will use it so that it can tell a differnt story with the same characters like JJ did with Star Trek.

[Balinkay]

You didn't like the prequel effects? Can't agree with you there - think they still hold up today some 15 years later.

But the dialogue. Oh that dialogue will never get better. Personally liked Episode III best - the least Jar-Jar, the best effects and the most fun over the top fights.


Saw a cool theory MaRey-Sue might be Luke's clone, one of many, which would go some way to repairing parts of her awfulness.

[toneata]

I hated the prequels. Jar Jar ruined TPM, then Hayden Christensen's Anakin totally destroyed the next 2. Truly awful acting.

.....and, "from my point of view the jedi are evil", has to go down as one of the worst lines of dialogue ever.

[Balinkay]

I don't think HeyDontActAgain was that bad as Anakin. I mean who the hell could make things like "I don't like sand" sound good. Think he was really believable as a tormented and extremely gifted young man in need of guidance.

[jozza800]

You didn't like the prequel effects? Can't agree with you there - think they still hold up today some 15 years later.

But the dialogue. Oh that dialogue will never get better. Personally liked Episode III best - the least Jar-Jar, the best effects and the most fun over the top fights.


Saw a cool theory MaRey-Sue might be Luke's clone, one of many, which would go some way to repairing parts of her awfulness.

Especially AOTC and ROTS. Everything was shot infront of a green screen and it shows. It was basically a reverse of Who Framed Roger Rabbit! Even the Clone troopers were digital.

At least TPM had some practical effects and they filmed in real locations or well built sets.

the clone war era is pretty well shown in the likes of The Clone Wars series. And I loved the Genndy Tartakovsky short series leading right up to the start of ROTS.

[RedNoodle]

They should have made the prequels look like the original trilogy. As soon as I saw robots that were from a time before the Empire but who were more advanced than those that supposedly came after them, I knew TPM and the rest of the prequels were going to be total sloblocks, and that was before Jar-Jar Binks showed up and made the Ewoks look like Sir Laurence Olivier clones.

It's all done to save costs, but by doing so they immediately dispensed with something that made the original trillogy so good. Another example of this is having a CGI version of "Clash of the Titans". Ray Harryhausen's stop motion animation is what made the original and his other films so visceral and memorable.

We don't need 'updated' or more 'glossy' versions of these films, we just needed, nay wanted more of the same.

[Balinkay]

Especially AOTC and ROTS. Everything was shot infront of a green screen and it shows. It was basically a reverse of Who Framed Roger Rabbit! Even the Clone troopers were digital.

At least TPM had some practical effects and they filmed in real locations or well built sets.

the clone war era is pretty well shown in the likes of The Clone Wars series. And I loved the Genndy Tartakovsky short series leading right up to the start of ROTS.

You and me both pal - I event recommended it to redebreck earlier.


I do agree they look really CGI, but I'm inclined to give it a bit of a pass, seeing as they showed us so much more of each world than the original trilogy. I would have liked more practical effects for sure though.

[Balinkay]

@Noods,

yeah, it's baffling why they strayed so far away from the original aesthetic. I'm not even sure it was significantly cheaper to do it with green screens back then.

[redebreck]

I hated the prequels. Jar Jar ruined TPM, then Hayden Christensen's Anakin totally destroyed the next 2. Truly awful acting.

.....and, "from my point of view the jedi are evil", has to go down as one of the worst lines of dialogue ever.

can't disagree with the first sentence, where did the "jedi are evil" quote come from?
thanks everyone for the descriptions/analyses of the films and spin-offs, I will take a look when I can.

[Balinkay]

It's quote from Anakin. Think he says it on Mustafar in the third film.

[Clungeman]

You didn't like the prequel effects?

Saw a cool theory MaRey-Sue might be Luke's clone, one of many, which would go some way to repairing parts of her awfulness.

For me, it was the overuse / over-reliance on special effects that was the problem, rather than the actual quality of them. The scenes in Attack of the Clones with Obi-Wan on Kamino were all completely greenscreened, and the only other actor there was the guy playing Jango Fett - it all looked incredibly fake in a way that the practical effects in the original trilogy never did.

I hated the prequels. Jar Jar ruined TPM, then Hayden Christensen's Anakin totally destroyed the next 2. Truly awful acting.

.....and, "from my point of view the jedi are evil", has to go down as one of the worst lines of dialogue ever.

I don't think HeyDontActAgain was that bad as Anakin. I mean who the hell could make things like "I don't like sand" sound good. Think he was really believable as a tormented and extremely gifted young man in need of guidance.

I'm with Bali on this one, Hayden Christensen isn't a brilliant actor, but you could have had anybody in that role trying to work with that script and they still would have looked utter shit. Ewan MacGregor is probably the only actor that came out of those movies with their reputation intact. It's taken about 15 years for Natalie portman to get her career back on track!

[Aldo1988]

The Phantom Menace - Jar-Jar Binks, the over use of CGI, the fact that the technology in the universe is better than it was in the later films (original ones) and that 20hr long race scene are reasons why I will never go back and watch that pile of shite.