Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, December 20, 2019) Movie • Page 417

never liked that all 3 movies in this new franchise ended on the exact same musical cue

 

After seeing the movie I couldn't remember anything that stood out musically, but I actually really love the score just from listening to it independently of the movie. The video definitely reminded me of a lot of the fan service-y moments that didn't make sense from storytelling perspective though.

 

Could you imagine one day Lucas comes back and makes new movies that erase the Disney ones out of canon like Cameron with the Terminator sequels and Dark Fate.

 

Based

 

This is actually one of the dumbest scenes ever filmed though.

 

Anakin vs. Obi Wan was the final nail in the coffin for me when watching Revenge of the Sith for the first time as far as actually liking the movie. It is easily my least favorite of the prequel trilogy films, but I distinctly remember looking forward to the showdown between the two of them as the movie was going on and hoping I would feel the emotion of what is happening... ...and then the fight happens and there is just so much distracting CGI silliness going on around them and distractingly bad composting. I literally feel no emotion whatsoever watching what happens during that fight and really only can vaguely even pay attention and always start just looking around at the CGI work and critiquing things that stick out to me as bad.

I so wish that they had just shot that scene in a room somewhere. That scene really drove home to me that I was no longer the target demographic for Star Wars films in a way that nothing else had up until that point, which is fine, and also that George Lucas' biggest priorities at that point in time were not really what I was looking for out of the story, again which is also fine.

I do not think The Phantom Menace is a great movie but it is my favorite of the prequel trilogy and for me more of the big scenes land emotionally so-to-speak. Yeah it has Jar Jar Binks bumbling around clumsily bobbling bad CGI weird glowing paint energy balls at a point in a battle that should probably be tense and exciting and dramatic, but it also has the scene of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon battling Darth Maul amongst the laser force field barrier things, which is hands down one of the best sequences in all of Star Wars media to me. I can pull that scene up on YouTube and I'll feel the anguish of Obi-Wan not being able to get to Qui-Gon to help him EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Watching the Obi-Wan vs. Anakin fight at the end of Revenge by contrast just leaves me completely and utterly cold but also bored and annoyed.

 

Anakin vs. Obi-Wan in ROTS always reminds me of a part of Peter Jackson's Return of the King, specifically Gandalf barring the gates of Minas Tirith from the Witch King of Angmar.

The scene in the book is one of my absolute favorite scenes in all of literature. The scene isn't even in the theatrical cut of the movie, but a version of it is in the extended edition. The Witch King flies into Minas Tirith and lands his giant dragon thing on a street of one of Minas Tirith's upper levels and Gandalf confronts him there. It would have been so simple and so much cheaper to shoot the scene as written but also so much more powerful and effective and dramatic in my opinion. You would have just needed Ian McKellen and whoever played the Witch King, two horses and a big gate. Boom.

Watching that scene feels to me like Peter Jackson just got carried away with all of his fancy toys and world class CGI artists doing amazing work and lost track of the emotional core of the story he was telling, which is exactly how the showdown at the end of ROTS strikes me as well.

I feel like I should mention thought that Return of the King is a really good movie while Revenge of the Sith is not.

 

Um battle of the heroes gave us all that pre-fight dialogue. That’s the true gift. Not the actual laser sword fight.

“My allegiance is to the the Republic, TO DEMOCRACY!”

 

Day 4, Solo/ Rogue One double feature

Solo - Movie is fine. It’s nice to see Han meeting Chewbacca. My favorite parts of the film were probably both Han/Lando card game scenes. Donald Glover was a perfect cast. Woody Harrelson is also great. But high stakes don’t feel high enough and that “reveal” at the end was anticlimactic considering we’re not getting a sequel, not that this film really deserves one (6.5/10)

Rogue One - I’ve seen this film like 4 times and I still can’t remember much of it. I feel like the blend of characters we’ve never met and won’t see again makes it harder to engage with on a individual character level. Still a pretty solid film with cool effects and a cool ending. The Darth Vader vs rebel sequence at the end is one of coolest moments in the series honestly (6.5/10)

 

This is what I mean when I say people who love Revenge of the Sith like Star Wars so differently that we're basically not even talking about the same franchise, lol.

I know we already talked about this like 3 or 4 months ago, but like, when I see how Lucas just tossed Yoda & Palpatine skins over the most generic flashy lightsaber nonsense, I get so bummed. Such a gross lack of imagination, w/ no attention to characterization. All the more reason why Luke's projection in Last Jedi rules: It's actually creative.

I dunno... The score admittedly carries a lot of the weight. And, Maul's design carries a lot of the leftover weight. But, I'd still argue that the actual fight itself is good. The showy stuff is at just the right level to not feel sterile, & it's paced quite well. Love the force field hallway thing.

 

That’s kind of the point. All the Jedi have been turned into something they’re not by the end of the Prequels through Palpatine’s manipulations, which is why the galaxy can buy the fact that they rose up against him. It highlights the bad aspects of the Jedi Order. We just saw the peacekeepers and deep force connections of Obi-Wan & Yoda first so it seems wrong/cheap, but to become that they had to fail.

 

giving a lot of credit to something I didn't read onscreen at even at 8 years old or whatever

 

Yoda is my favorite prequel character so watching him wield a lightsaber was cool to me.

 

Boring morons?

 

Revisiting the movies before this one, I was struck by how little I liked Yoda in these. Both because of the bad action I already described (which I liked when I was young, but now, my gosh do I hate it), & because his characterization feels so off from what we see in the original trilogy.

Which, sure, you can impose an arc onto Yoda between Revenge & Empire. There’s plenty of time in post-failure hiding for him to change. But, especially w/ how in need of more charm those prequels are, & how wonderful classic Yoda is, & how relatively little time of his life percentage wise that really is between films... he should still be a whimsical mentor type.

 

I kind of regard the prequels as just story arcs from the clone wars I don’t like at this point.

 

That looks twenty times worse than Leia.

 

The only small olive branch I'll offer is that, if it weren't for all the awful garbage around it, the concept of Palpatine & Yoda facing off in that context would have potential to be dope, lol. It's so dumb to have those two characters bouncing around w/ lightsabers, but I would've dug a more creative, more character-driven confrontation between two old space wizards inside the senate's meeting area.

 

The prequels have the best fights.

Even the terrible fights are better than non prequel fights.

 

Obi Wan vs Vader in '77 Star Wars is better than every fight in Attack or Revenge.

 

snoozefest, unexciting, boomer on boomer duel