Carrie Fisher Was Originally Going To Be 'The Last Jedi' In the Final Star Wars Movie (yahoo.com) 165
Luke Skywalker wasn't going to be the only Jedi in the final Star Wars movie, reports Yahoo Entertainment:
In the original version of the ninth and final installment, The Rise of Skywalker, his sister, Leia (played by Carrie Fisher), was going to emerge as a full-fledged Jedi warrior, complete with her very own lightsaber. That's according to no less an authority than Fisher's real-life brother, Todd Fisher, who filled us in on what the plan was for his sister's iconic character prior to her sudden death in December 2016. "She was going to be the big payoff in the final film," Fisher reveals exclusively to Yahoo Entertainment. "She was going to be the last Jedi, so to speak. That's cool right....? People used to say to me, 'Why is it that Carrie never gets a lightsaber and chops up some bad guys,'" Fisher says, noting that Alec Guinness was roughly the same age when Obi-Wan Kenobi battled Darth Vader in A New Hope. "Obi-Wan was in his prime when he was Carrie's age...!"
Unfortunately, a version of The Rise of Skywalker where Leia picks up her father and brother's chosen weapon can only exist in our imaginations. After Fisher's death, her alter ego's arc had to be re-conceived by returning director J.J. Abrams, who previously directed the actress in 2015's The Force Awakens. "The truth is that J.J. Abrams was great friends with Carrie... he had an extraordinary sense of love for her," her brother says. It was that love that led the filmmaker to make a bold, and creatively risky decision: take unused footage of Leia left over from The Force Awakens and make it part of The Rise of Skywalker. "They had eight minutes of footage," Fisher tells us. "They grabbed every frame and analyzed it... and then reverse-engineered it and [got] it into the story the right way. It's kind of magical."
Unfortunately, a version of The Rise of Skywalker where Leia picks up her father and brother's chosen weapon can only exist in our imaginations. After Fisher's death, her alter ego's arc had to be re-conceived by returning director J.J. Abrams, who previously directed the actress in 2015's The Force Awakens. "The truth is that J.J. Abrams was great friends with Carrie... he had an extraordinary sense of love for her," her brother says. It was that love that led the filmmaker to make a bold, and creatively risky decision: take unused footage of Leia left over from The Force Awakens and make it part of The Rise of Skywalker. "They had eight minutes of footage," Fisher tells us. "They grabbed every frame and analyzed it... and then reverse-engineered it and [got] it into the story the right way. It's kind of magical."
A dark fate it may have given the movie (Score:2)
Audiences seem to be recoiling from these revised plot lines, but alas, we'll never know.
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Audiences seem to be recoiling from these revised plot lines, but alas, we'll never know.
Indeed. Reworking all the characters for the express purpose of having a female lead is obvious to most viewers (I hope). And totally unnecessary. Rewatch the original Star Wars and you'll see that she was always a strong willed character. That's a major plot point. You don't need to have the female characters take on all the positive traits of every single lead character in the series.
Seriously, who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Star was has been ridden to death, then some, and then some more, until only bloody goop was ground across the floor. By Jar Jar Abrams nonetheless, who never managed to tie any story together at the end in his life.
All trying to ride on the former glory of movies barely anyone who watches them even knows anymore. Fan fiction level space opera, written by a teenager who thought he got sci-fi because he put a knights and magic" fantasy story in the "future^Wpast.
The first two and a half movies were fun when I was a kid, but that's about it. They appear silly now. And the only thing more pathetic than running after them as a grown-up, is to run after the degererated sequel series of the sequel series, several decades later.
Even dead people got more going for them. Let it rest! Come up with something *actually* new, ya fuckin Hollywood cokeheads!
Re:Seriously, who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
"The first two and a half movies were fun when I was a kid, but that's about it. They appear silly now. And the only thing more pathetic than running after them as a grown-up, is to run after the degererated sequel series of the sequel series, several decades later."
I bet you're fun at parties too.
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You just wait 'til I perfect force-choking people over the internet!
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No, I just think it's funny when some one criticizes something that is massively popular as if they're the divine arbiter of everything good in this world.
How about "I personally don't like it"
Re:Seriously, who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
The first two and a half movies were fun when I was a kid, but that's about it. They appear silly now.
I watch them now and think: in Episode 4 in the opening, they knew they were being chased and couldn't outrun the Star Destroyer, and apparently they also knew where the Empire would enter the ship. Why not set up barricades in the corridor instead of lining up like targets? And in ESB, why did the ground troops defending the base all decide to get out of the trenches and start running towards! the Imperials? And let's not even get started on the battle on Endor in RotJ. No camouflage, and let's all stand in parade formation in a clearing when springing a trap? Has no one heard of perimeter security?
That was the nice thing about Rogue One: it finally seemed like characters there actually had some common sense regarding combat. I almost had a heart attack when I saw an actual, planned and executed ambush. Finally some tactics!
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The opening of Episode 4 is the only time the Storm Troopers displayed any marksmanship skills or general competence. Obviously that was the point of the scene; to make them look like a real threat so there was some jeopardy for the protagonists later on.
Because it was a diplomatic vessel (Score:3)
And they were up against storm troopers, and for all the jokes about them they're actually insanely accurate. I can't find the video now but if you compare their missed shots (ignoring when they were ordered to let Luke & Leia get away in A New Hope) to ac
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It's not hard to believe there wouldn't be a lot of stuff that could quickly and easily be set up as a barricade on a star ship. As for "Knowing they were coming" the star destroyer would have come out of hyperspace basically right on top of them.
True, but it shows them being chased, and gives the impression that it was something of an ongoing chase. And you can't tell me on a starship there aren't crates, furniture, boxes, etc that can be moved? Any cover is better than no cover, and the attacking stormtroopers would still be slowed down breaking through them. Not knocking the skills of stormtroopers. Those first few through the door would have known they were screwed.
On a Starship they'd be well secured (Score:2)
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The Empire stormed the ship looking for something specific, but then decided it wasn't worth going after the escape pod that randomly ejected with a couple of droids on board.
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The Empire stormed the ship looking for something specific, but then decided it wasn't worth going after the escape pod that randomly ejected with a couple of droids on board.
Except they didn't know there were droids on board, and then they did go after the pod...
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The saw it, thought about blowing it up... But decided to save on their supply of lasers or something and let it go.
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The saw it, thought about blowing it up... But decided to save on their supply of lasers or something and let it go.
They let it go by going where it went. Wait, what?
Re:Because it was a diplomatic vessel (Score:5, Funny)
The saw it, thought about blowing it up... But decided to save on their supply of lasers or something and let it go.
Soldier 2: Hold your fire, there's no lifeforms aboard.
Terry: Hold your fire? What, are we paying by the laser now?
Soldier 2: You don't do the budget Terry, I do.
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Nidi62 mused:
I watch them now and think: in Episode 4 in the opening, they knew they were being chased and couldn't outrun the Star Destroyer, and apparently they also knew where the Empire would enter the ship. Why not set up barricades in the corridor instead of lining up like targets? And in ESB, why did the ground troops defending the base all decide to get out of the trenches and start running towards! the Imperials? And let's not even get started on the battle on Endor in RotJ. No camouflage, and let's all stand in parade formation in a clearing when springing a trap? Has no one heard of perimeter security?
That was the nice thing about Rogue One: it finally seemed like characters there actually had some common sense regarding combat. I almost had a heart attack when I saw an actual, planned and executed ambush. Finally some tactics!
This. Exactly this.
Exactly none of the main-sequence Star Wars movies display the slightest grasp of military science. Nor do any of the animated spin-off series. All the battles are like those of Illiad:mobs of individual heroes rushing full-tilt at one another to engage in single combat.
Obviously, that's because the people who've been writing these things are, each and every one, confirmed civilians scribbling action scenes, not ex-military-command-officers with extensive combat and combat-pl
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The clone army isn't made up of professional military personnel bred to the task. It's a whole bunch of speed-grown copies of a bounty hunter, all less than ten years old, programmed by civilians in a galaxy that hasn't had an army for generations, led by amateurs (Jedi "generals").
Where, exactly, do they get any grasp of military science?
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When I saw Rogue One, I thought "ok, cool, this side-quest sortof movie turned out to be the best Star Wars movie since Empire." I know some folks pooh pooh it because they thought the characters were killed off too quickly, but I liked almost everything about it. It's super-underrated, but fortunately gets fairly overlooked when folks shit on modern Star Wars.
Re:Seriously, who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
The first two and a half movies were fun when I was a kid, but that's about it. They appear silly now.
I really like the originals now, but you have to watch the "despecialized edition", the Lucas versions ruin everything. The practical effects, great banter between the actors, and plot that tells a story with actual character arcs: it's all lacking today.
Let it rest! Come up with something *actually* new, ya fuckin Hollywood cokeheads!
That would require two things Hollywood can't do: take a risk, and hire a writer based on talent. But let's not forget, Hollywood didn't think Star Wars would work either, it was just "spring filler". What we've really lost these days is those "filler" movies: movies that the studio gives a small budget and says "do whatever, just release on time", and so are the creative vision of on man, not a committee. 95% of them were crap, but that's where the great "something new"s came from.
Re:Seriously, who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
plot that tells a story with actual character arcs: it's all lacking today.
One of the biggest issues people here seem to have with TLJ is that it has character arcs. Instead of just being basically the same person but in different situations like the original trilogy, the characters actually changed significantly during the movie.
In the original trilogy most of the major development happened off-screen between movies. Luke was a whiny kid through the whole first movie, then a whiny Jedi in training through the whole second movie, and then a Jedi convinced he could redeem Vader through the whole third movie. All the transitions, when he decided to get serious and become a Jedi or when he finished his training and developed the confidence seen when he goes to Jabba's palace all happened between the films.
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One of the biggest issues people here seem to have with TLJ is that it has character arcs.
Oh? Whose fundamental flaw was tested, and whether they could overcome that flaw determined the outcome of the movie? Because I don't remember that ever happening. It almost happened with Finn, but: denied.
Heck, other than Finn who even has a flaw in the new SW films? Remember a flaw is not a weakness, a flaw is something we look down on a character for, like being a racist, or being selfish to the point it hurts others, or being a coward. Kylo Ren maybe? But I had to search to remember his name, he's
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Whose fundamental flaw was tested, and whether they could overcome that flaw determined the outcome of the movie?
Poe was reckless and obsessed with desperate, high stakes attacks that were costing the rebels too many lives. If his mutiny had succeeded and his plan been put into action they would all have died.
Finn started out just looking to escape, with no connection to the Rebellion. With Rose's help he came to understand why the Rebellion was fighting the Empire and why it mattered. Later he makes the sa
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Poe was reckless and obsessed with desperate, high stakes attacks that were costing the rebels too many lives. If his mutiny had succeeded and his plan been put into action they would all have died.
Yes, you've just decribed the absence of a character arc. His failure did not affect the outcome, His did not change as a result. Also, I think most of the audience saw him as in the right, saw it doesn't count as a flaw.
Kylo Ren defeated the Emperor and became leader of the galaxy by defeating Rey's attempts to turn him to her side.
At no point was Kylo's temper relevant to the outcome of the film. And he didn't change. No arc.
Rey realized that she couldn't rely on Luke to save the Rebels.
Rey has no flaws. The few times she hasn't easily succeeded at whatever she's tried, it's been because of forces beyond her control (e.g., Luke not instantly liking her).
Luke himself goes from jaded and thinking that the Jedi and the Force can do no good to using the last of his strength to save his sister and the Rebels
Luke. Don't even g
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A character doesn't directly have to affect the outcome of the film to have a character arc. That's not what an arc is.
Anyway, Poe has a negative outcome on the movies for the rebels. A lot of it was setting up the next movie, much like Empire. The big reveal in that movie went nowhere until the next one.
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A character doesn't directly have to affect the outcome of the film to have a character arc. That's not what an arc is.
Well, words mean what we want to to mean, but I'm using the term in the way that's relevant to film scripts (or drama, in general). Don't confuse character development with an arc.
The very core of story structure is that you have a character with a flaw, and that flaw is tested, and the ending is either happy or unhappy depending on the character's choice. It's called an "arc" because it's expected to be a down-then-up arc for a comedy (in the Aristotelian sense, not necessarily the haha sense), or up-the
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So that's Rose reason to exist?
I was actually already wondering why the fuck this character exists altogether.
Re:Seriously, who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the biggest issues people here seem to have with TLJ is that it has character arcs.
No, it's because nearly every element of the plot relies on the characters being stupid. If purple-haired general had actually told people she had a plan (not even what the plan was: just that there was a plan), the entire "finding the master codebreaker" plot wouldn't have existed. Also her plan was stupid because she had no idea if the first order would be conducting regular decloaking scans (since apparently it's super-easy for them to detect cloaked ships). If the Finn and Rose hadn't landed their ship in the middle of the beach (instead of, say, in a tall patch of weeds) during a covert infiltration mission, that plan would have worked. If Leia had ordered the bombers to return to the ship in the opening scene (instead of just ordering Poe back), that entire battle losing most of their bombers and fighters simply wouldn't have happened (Poe would have been forced to return without support). Hell, the first order could have ended the chase by not ordering Kylo back when he was attacking the Resistance ship, since he never seemed to be in any real danger (or they could have sent out bombers themselves, which presumably they have, even if they apparently don't have a single fast attack ship in their entire fleet).
Basically, the plot is fucking nonsense, from start to finish, with characters making obviously moronic decisions at nearly every stage. The only part that made sense was Luke and Rey, and that's saying something (considering how Luke's character basically contradicts everything that he'd learned in IV through VI). And even then, Luke coulda thought to mention "hey guys while I distract Kylo how bout you guys maybe try and escape, m'kay?"
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Regarding Holdo she presumably did tell anyone who needed to know what the plan was. It's normal in a military setting for people who don't need to know not to be told stuff because that just increases the chances of the information leaking.
Poe had just been demoted and needed to learn to trust his superiors, to become a better solider instead of just a loose cannon.
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If Leia had ordered the bombers to return to the ship in the opening scene (instead of just ordering Poe back), that entire battle losing most of their bombers and fighters simply wouldn't have happened
As I remembered it the dreadnaught ship was the one that got taken out by the bombers. You figure if they didn't sacrifice the bombers the gun on that thing is going to cause massive damage to ships in the fleet.
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All the transitions, when he decided to get serious and become a Jedi or when he finished his training and developed the confidence seen when he goes to Jabba's palace all happened between the films.
Yes, but they were all explained in/by the context of the films. And really, how much do people change in a couple of hours? Except when they get a hand cut off, that is.
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Star was has been ridden to death, then some, and then some more, until only bloody goop was ground across the floor. By Jar Jar Abrams nonetheless, who never managed to tie any story together at the end in his life.
All trying to ride on the former glory of movies barely anyone who watches them even knows anymore. Fan fiction level space opera, written by a teenager who thought he got sci-fi because he put a knights and magic" fantasy story in the "future^Wpast.
The first two and a half movies were fun when I was a kid, but that's about it. They appear silly now. And the only thing more pathetic than running after them as a grown-up, is to run after the degererated sequel series of the sequel series, several decades later. Even dead people got more going for them. Let it rest! Come up with something *actually* new, ya fuckin Hollywood cokeheads!
Star was has been ridden to death, then some, and then some more, until only bloody goop was ground across the floor. By Jar Jar Abrams nonetheless, who never managed to tie any story together at the end in his life.
All trying to ride on the former glory of movies barely anyone who watches them even knows anymore. Fan fiction level space opera, written by a teenager who thought he got sci-fi because he put a knights and magic" fantasy story in the "future^Wpast.
The first two and a half movies were fun when I was a kid, but that's about it. They appear silly now. And the only thing more pathetic than running after them as a grown-up, is to run after the degererated sequel series of the sequel series, several decades later. Even dead people got more going for them. Let it rest! Come up with something *actually* new, ya fuckin Hollywood cokeheads!
New like the Terminator Dark Fate or the new James Bond movie with a female 007 and a #metoo plot?
Much of Hollywood is on a heavy handed political bent lately, with offerings that are attempting to entice a new "woke" group to come to the movies, and actively rejecting at least half of the fans that supported them for years.
They must make a lot of money that they can tell their audience to slag off. Then again, Star Wars Solo and Terminator Dark Fate might be signalling something different afoot.
As
re: #metoo plots (Score:2)
Yeah.... I recently read a big diatribe on Slashdot, about the new Terminator movie really NOT being yet another example of Hollywood desperately trying to go all Feminist and making women the superheros, saving the bumbling, clueless male characters. And I haven't watched it to have my own opinion. Given the fact Sarah Connor has been around quite a while now and presumably, this is just a continuation of the story for her -- it might make perfect sense?
But certainly, it's become a "thing" with newer mov
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But trying to make every lead role female in a new movie fit into that category in some way just doesn't work well.....
For you. But it works pretty well for the core audience of 14-29 year olds, or whatever their core demographic is now.
Welcome to getting old. If you're not dropping a react on TikTok you're not the target audience. Sure, they'll be happy to take your money, but you're not out on the broader social media advertising their movie for free, so they don't care as much.
The people making movies aren't idiots, they're profit-motivated. They have test audiences made up of the people that are going to make them the m
Re: #metoo plots (Score:5, Insightful)
But trying to make every lead role female in a new movie fit into that category in some way just doesn't work well.....
For you. But it works pretty well for the core audience of 14-29 year olds, or whatever their core demographic is now.
Does it? It is pretty hard to say that things are working pretty well when movies like Star Wars Solo lose money, Star Wars action figures are in the bargain bins, and Disney is having trouble selling the new characters, because they are based on political considerations.
A Star wars movie losing money was once considered an impossibility.
The Terminator, Dark Fate movie turned out to be a bomb. Turning Sarah Conner into an old drunk who seems to reject motherhood, killing John Conner off apparently without any lines, and replacing him with a really non-threatening tiny Hispanic girl as the new savior of humanity is a head scratcher.
And then there is Mackenzie Davis, who they worked very hard to turn into an androgynous character. The succeeded to the point that people nicknamed her to the "LGBT 10,000".
Here's the point - People go to movies largely as an escape. Injecting identity politics into movies eliminates that escape, and annoys a lot of people.
Another point - while I'm certain that movies like Terminator DF get a lot of applause from the woke crowd, in similar fashion that Gillette got some applause when they launched theirattack on men ads, in the end, is it really a good idea to publicly tell half your audience to slag off?
The woke crowd tends not to go to action movies, just as the misandrysts that applauded the Gillette attack ads tend not to use having products.
Meanwhile, enjoy the Joker movie, which the woke crow hates with a passion. Go figure, huh?
Welcome to getting old. If you're not dropping a react on TikTok you're not the target audience.
You forgot to add "Okay Boomer". For all of the ageism, it seems a lot of the criticism of the modern trend of injecting identity politics into movies are not us old folk. How much money does it put into the producers bank accounts per TikTok reacts?
And here is the part that might trigger you badly. A lot of the people that hate the woke aspect of some of today's movies are not old men, they are young women.
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I really think the reason so many girls and women found Princess Leia compelling was the way she was portrayed realistically. You knew she was an important figure and woman with a lot of influence (being royalty and all), but she still retained all of the traits that defined her as a woman.
I think a few big rules that are frequently broken by writing hacks and people trying to make a specific 'message' are that you should lead by example, and you should show, not tell. Your Hobbes and Shaw example is pretty good -- lines like those that are trying to build the character up come off as preachy or pandering. Don't TELL me a character is great. Simply show them being great and let us draw that conclusion for themselves. That feels organic. Lines of dialogue do NOT feel organic. Those lines of d
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the Joker movie is the highest grossing R rated movie of all time
Without China! On a relatively small budget and minimal marketing budget. It's more profitable than any of the Avengers movies or Star Wars movies.
Makes me laugh so much I almost went to see it. I'll wait for the BluRay.
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the Joker movie is the highest grossing R rated movie of all time
Without China! On a relatively small budget and minimal marketing budget. It's more profitable than any of the Avengers movies or Star Wars movies. Makes me laugh so much I almost went to see it. I'll wait for the BluRay.
Yup - they told a story, didn't try to make a feranchise out of it, and people went to see it. All without the wokedom menace.
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Hollywood has always been highly political. Film geeks firmly believe that media, particularly film, drives the cultural zeitgeist. How much it drives and how much it reflects are up for debate, but film and television do certainly have an impact.
It's not a coincidence that Hollywood was seen as a nest of communists in the 50s, or that Nixon actively recruited performers to his cause.
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Hollywood has always been highly political. Film geeks firmly believe that media, particularly film, drives the cultural zeitgeist. How much it drives and how much it reflects are up for debate, but film and television do certainly have an impact.
It's not a coincidence that Hollywood was seen as a nest of communists in the 50s, or that Nixon actively recruited performers to his cause.
Yeah, much of storytelling has a political bent. The trick is how to inject it. The "woke" aspect of today's movies simply wrecks them. It's clumsy, and way too obvious. Terminator dark fate almost immediately kills off John Conner, than replaces him with a really unconvincing female character. Sarah Conner who is a beloved character, is terribly disrespected in the new movie. In the end, it becomes obvious as Kathleen Kennedy's "The Force is Female" T-Shirt that it is a men replacement scheme. It is on t
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It's hard to objectively evaluate the politics of movements while you're living through them. Political movies become important works (e.g. Citizen Kane) or forgotten trash (e.g. Gabriel Over the White House) depending on who wins. Incidentally, Kane was a disappointment at the box office while Gabriel was a hit.
A lot of a the current politics in movies seems to be relatively heavy handed, abandoning subtlety and story telling, and with an emphasis on blatantly replacing beloved characters, but that could a
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A lot of a the current politics in movies seems to be relatively heavy handed, abandoning subtlety and story telling, and with an emphasis on blatantly replacing beloved characters, but that could also be the result of a general lack of creativity in Hollywood.
You're not kidding. It is an attack. To put a crypto-liberal outlook into a movie is fine if it is your movie. You takes your chances and maybe people will like it. But when they decide to just in your face replace say, the males in Ghostbusters with all females in the horrid 2016 reboot, and for no reason other than vagina, well, it does sort of expose the people making the film as sexist. Or Rei in Star Wars. She's following the agenda, not the story line. And as such, she is an unconvincing hero. And as
Errr a shitton of people. (Score:2)
Look I know you get off on looking like a complete ignorant dolt, but I mean there's not a single thing you've said in your entire post that is correct.
- J. J. Abrahams has finalised plenty of stories.
- Barely anyone watches a movie that grossed $1.3 billion at the boxoffice?
- It wasn't written by a teenager.
- Being silly and being fun are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore being silly doesn't make a movie bad.
- Being a grownup means you can't like starwars? I get it man, Luke Skywalker kicked your dog and
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Right? Who hasn't lived a story like "hope we don't run outta gas!" during the work week?
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Well look on the bright side, at least it's not another Rian Johnson fuckup so at least there's some possibility of it being slightly not shit.
Hey, Looper was great, and his work on Breaking Bad was some of the best hours ever to air on television. He _had_ a good pedigree before he came to Star Wars, so there's definitely some talent there. It's puzzling figuring out just who fucked up there and with what direction they were under.
No difference (Score:5, Funny)
Cool concept but they would have fucked that up just as much.
I am no filmmaker but how the hell can you be incapable of making a Star Wars or Terminator movie people don't want to watch?
I feel like you really have to try to reach that level of incompetence...
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Whoops, double negative there.
Obviously it should be
"I am no filmmaker but how the hell can you be incapable of making a Star Wars or Terminator movie people want to watch?"
People are watching both (Score:2)
So here's the thing, they made a movie _you_ don't want to watch. Me too. But the foreign box offices have been great. You can't do good stories that are easy to translate into 20+ languages. So you get crap dialog and the plots are a mess. Trying to please 20+ different censors doesn't help either.
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At this point, it is never going to break even.
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Terminator is not even remotely close to the break even mark, which is estimated at 470 million [cinemablend.com].
A film's GROSS REVENUE surpassing its production budget does not make it profitable (and that's not even considering the advertising campaign which puts it that much further into the red).
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Re:People are watching both (Score:5, Interesting)
both Star Wars moves were crazy profitable
The 2 main Disney Star Wars films had marketing budgets far in excess of their production budgets. TFA was very profitable. TLJ may have been slightly profitable, but it was a huge disappointment compared to what they wanted.
Buying the franchise is going to go down as one of the worst business blunders of all time. They still haven't recouped their initial investment, and it doesn't look like they will any time soon. The BluRay sales were abysmal (you're probably going to link to a shill media report listing it as the top selling BR in its release month - I dare you to look at the actual numbers, not the meaningless ranking against nothing titles). The merchandising is dead, and it's a big part of why TRU failed and why Hasbro might die soon too. The park (section of a park with a few props, a bar, and 2 "rides") is a miserable failure. The game license is a joke. Nobody is buying comics. There's fucking n o t h i n g that Disney can do to turn the investment to profit. Nothing except put out good SW films and toys, but we're 2/3 of the way through a shitfest of a trilogy that would have to be entirely retconned for that to happen. Even if that were attempted, Ford is out, Hamill is pissed, and Fisher is dead.
I can only hope that this, the accounting fraud investigation, and the impending failure of the MCU and Disney+ cause a LOT of harm to Disney. I would love for some of their recent acquisitions to be split back off. The alternative is Disney controlling just about all of the media.
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The Terminator movie just broke even
No it hasn't. It needs $450m to break even. Currently it's less than half of that. What it has done is grossed higher than its production budget. That is less than half the cost that goes into making, marketing, and the release / distribution of a movie.
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Terminator is still a long way from being profitable, and Star Wars still has to pay off those 4.something billions Disney paid Lucas for the franchise. I'm fairly sure they fully expected these 5 movies they pushed out to pay that, well, Solo didn't quite perform and TLJ, while profitable, was far from what they wanted.
Whether or not I like the movies is moot. I was never a huge Terminator fan and for me, Star Wars ended with Ep6. I already didn't quite like the prequels. Maybe I was already too old to lik
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I am no filmmaker but how the hell can you be incapable of making a Star Wars or Terminator movie people don't want to watch?
Work for a studio. Don't forget, the overwhelming majority of people actually "making" the film have their ideas completely shat on by some executive producer or studio trying to push some shitty agenda (see: Rewritten scripts, changed directors, recut movies, etc).
Timeline Makes Filmmakers Look Incompetent (Score:3)
She died a whole year before the release of The Last Jedi. Given the extensive re-shoots and re-working they've done to other films like Solo and apparently Episode 9, they had plenty of time to fix TLJ by allowing Leia to die, and Luke to live.
But no, for some reason they appear absolutely obsessed with killing every OT character except her, maybe even one who's already dead (i.e. the Emperor).
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It's not like they weren't setup for her to die, instead she suddenly masters her force powers and comes back to life. That movie was disappointing on so many levels, from the meaningless plots that all seemed rushed together to the weird character decisions like this
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What I find kind of interesting is of three main characters from the original films the only one still alive is the one portrayed by the only actor/actress that is now dead. The other two living actor's characters have both been killed off.
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All they basically had to do is remove that ridiculous Mary Poppins scene and be done with it.
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The OT actors are getting old, and so they become the holy grail for screen writers and producers and deep pockets -- a major character there's no reason not to kill for dramatic -- and profit -- reasons.
Hollywoods love affair with Mary Sues is a catastr (Score:3, Insightful)
That would have been so bad (Score:3)
A ton of people were almost horrified when they watched her force pull herself back into the ship. This would not have left the reaction they expected.
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It would have tied in with the original trilogy very well. That line about "there is another" was never really resolved. Sure Leia was Luke's sister but she was also pitched by Obi-wan as the plan B for saving the galaxy if Luke failed.
In the old extended universe books she developed full on force powers so I'm sure the hardcore fans would have been happy to see that made canon.
It would have been interesting to see what she did with it. Back in the heyday of the Jedi they were apparently quite happy to use
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the Jedi they were apparently quite happy to use mind tricks to influence people as they saw fit, for example. The question of why anyone would trust them or want to be near them
Maybe your first sentence answers the second?
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In the old extended universe books
The EU is shit. The only exception I can think of is SotE.
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Well, I'm not going to argue with you, most of the EU is pretty bad. But a lot of the fans really like it, which is why it's so big. They keep buying those books.
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I don't think the problem was it was Leia doing it. It just looked silly.
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Yup. Superhero Leia, with a robe that looked kinda like a cape and everything.
Re:That would have been so bad (Score:5, Funny)
A lot of people were horrified by the overwhelming majority of that movie. Everyone anticipated that she'd either end up as a Jedi or that Rei was her daughter or something like that. Seriously for all the shit they've pulled, nothing would surprise anyone anymore.
Now excuse me while I drop bombs in zero gravity.
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Now excuse me while I drop bombs in zero gravity.
The bombs aren't dropped, they are launched. Read: ejected.
There are plenty of legitimate complaints about physics in Star Wars, but that's not one of them.
Given JJ's inability to understand consequences (Score:5, Interesting)
The second and third order consequences of trying to re-write a plot around existing footage will probably be horrific. I'd imagine there are several third act edits being shown to audiences to find the one that is least irritating. Remember, this is a man who in multiple franchises refuses to understand that space is vast.
In a Q&A session with fans, his writer for Trek 09 said of the idiotic scene where Spock is put on the moon around Vulcan to watch the destruction of his home planet, Orci said: "...we like to think of that sequence as impressionistic for a general audience. In other words, Nero could’ve beamed Spock prime down to Delta Vega with a telescope or some other type of measuring device to allow Spock to experience the pain of perceiving the destruction of his home world, but that simply isn’t very cinematic."
Of course, Delta Vega (be it a moon or sister planet of Vulcan, let's not get lost in that squabble for a moment) would have been destroyed by the black hole. That they decided to ignore the logic tells me that they want to make films literally for people not smart enough to see the problems in the story. Fine.
You're not getting my money.
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Remember, this is a man who in multiple franchises refuses to understand that space is vast.
If you're worried that space isn't vast, you shouldn't be watching Star Wars, not even the original trilogy. It's the franchise where the Millenium Falcon moved to a "pretty far" system without a working hyperdrive unit.
Continuity?? (Score:5, Interesting)
It wouldn't have made any sense for her to pick up a light saber and battle a foe as powerful as Darth Vader. Obi Wan had a lifetime of training and experience. Luke with his training was skilled, but almost lost, but was saved by his father in Jedi.
Characters that are instantly powerful are essentially boring superheros. It's sad Carrie passed away, but probably a good thing that this particular story line never made it.
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Like that Jedi they did introduce? What was her name again? Something with three letters and an r in it ... Ahh that's right, Sue. Mary Sue.
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It wouldn't have made any sense for her to pick up a light saber and battle a foe as powerful as Darth Vader.
You say that like that had stopped Disney before.
Oh look, I still have a mod troll following me (Score:2)
You know you make me feel more important the more you try to fuck with me, right? It only validates everything I'm doing.
You're also really bad at this, because it's obviously not offtopic. If anyone bothers to metamod [slashdot.org] you will have wasted your modpoint.
Not my Star Wars (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just a publicity thing to get attention to the next "Star Wars" movie. Nobody cares. The old fans are gone, and I don't think young people even care.
The existing Star Wars fan-base has been betrayed by the new Disney-owned Lucasfilm, time and time again. ... where pretty much nothing had happened, the heroes and lost and the galaxy had reverted back to a civil war again.
The biggest impact was the movie The Last Jedi (2017), wherein the main protagonist Luke Skywalker instead of being beacon of hope with a positive attitude as in the original movies, is a depressed hobo who kills himself (self-sacrifice, but still...).
They had already lost me and a lot of other fans with The Force Awakens back (2015), which had thrown away twenty-one years of published fiction in hundreds of books, comic books and video games, with several large conflicts and with many interesting and beloved characters to be replaced with a new continuity
At this point in time in the old continuity, the so called "Expanded Universe", Leia is already a trained and accomplished Jedi, as are her and Han's two sons and daughter. ... for ... well ... nothing substantial except for controversy, and I don't want to talk about that latter part.
Luke is the grandmaster of a thriving Jedi Order, and happily married to a strong female character which is also a fan-favourite. Unlike the new movies this didn't happen without a struggle, and there is a whole universe of interesting stories and relatable characters.
This is my Star Wars, and the Star Wars that many other fans want, thank you very much.
This is the Star Wars that George Lucas himself had said would be the only continuity after ROTJ, and the Star Wars that Lucasfilm representatives in charge of continuity Pablo Hidalgo and Leeland Chee later said (I heard them myself!) would be sorted out and used as base for all new movies to come -- but which Lucasfilm-president Kennedy and director Jar Jar Abrams later threw out
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RIP Mara Jade
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Slashdot: George Lucas is a stupid idiot that ruined Star Wars with Jar Jar and Midichlorians
Also Slashdot: George Lucas endorsed the Expanded Universe and therefore it is the only storyline that matters.
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Imagine that after Ep2 came out you had said that there will be a character in Star Wars more hated by the fans than Jar Jar.
People would have looked at you as if you just said that Trump would become president.
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It's almost as if there is more than one person pretending to be "Slashdot"
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Just to clarify, by the time Force Awakens came out the Expanded Universe had seen the death of Han and Leia's sons and the death of Luke's wife. It also had a much more appropriate Ben Skywalker instead of a Ben Solo.
It would have been nice to see this former canon in film.
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You know what will save Star Wars? (Score:5, Funny)
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Save it in the sense that it would make people forget about this trilogy because they find something to hate even more?
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Hate? What are you, a Sith Lord? This is DISNEY we're talking about! I give it 4 years - 5 years, tops - before the new Sith Lord is Darth Cuddlebuns, has a pretty striped tail, likes to dance and sing, and never does more than growl and stumble after the good and wonderful Jedi league, now populated with Ewoks.
Led by Jedi Jar Jar, of course...
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Then do a a Jar Jar Christmas Special...
They could vacation on Kashyyyk and celebrate Life Day with Chewie, Itchy, Lumpy, and Malla.
OR in the books... (Score:3)
Unfortunately, a version of The Rise of Skywalker where Leia picks up her father and brother's chosen weapon can only exist in our imaginations.
Actually the Star Wars novels have Leia as a full Jedi Knight and she kicks some mean Sith ass. Since the movies lately have sucked so bad, some of us get our Star Wars fix by reading the novels.
Obi-Wan was in his prime? (Score:2)
I guess I haven't watched the changed versions of the original trilogy carefully enough. Did they really take out the line where he tells Luke "I'm getting too old for this"?
Bleagh (Score:2)
I didn't think is was possible but Jar Jar Abrams has screwed up Star Wars worse than Lucas could have.
I like Carrie but she helped Lucas gain control of SW after the studio kicked him off the project
She liked the Club 54 scene but needed to dry out so she sold her points back to Lucas.
Those points went on to be worth millions.
I just wish Jar Jar A would leave her alone.
Carrie was not a health nut... (Score:2)
Now, I adored Carrie as Leia over the years but lets face it, she was not a health nut.
I remember seeing her waddle around in Force Awakens and thinking she didn't look well enough to be a standing general. Same age as Alec Guinness or not I don't see her having the stamina for the role of swordfighting Jedi without a lot of training and lifestyle changes over the course of at least a year. Perhaps there was time, but we all know how the story ends.
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Re:Shit, garbage, and more shit (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't care about Star Wars "on screen" any more anyhow. But the animated series have been damn good, and have brought Thrawn into canon. Who knows, we might still get a low budget 3D animated Thrawn Trilogy, unsullied by Hollywood studio executives.
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But which Thrawn trilogy will it be. The now canon new Thrawn or the legends Thrawn?
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Be honest: Would you want Disney to do it?
Especially after they so blatantly proved that they don't understand the mere basics of military tactics and strategy?
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Blue guy, black woman, make it a polka dotted she-male.
Since they will butcher the military aspect beyond recognition anyway, who cares?