Why Is 'Rise of Skywalker' Dividing Critics and Fans? (forbes.com) 192
"After opening 20 percent behind Star Wars: The Last Jedi last weekend, Skywalker has almost caught up with its predecessor as it heads for the $1 billion mark in a fitting end to Disney's unprecedented domination at the 2019 box office," writes the Hollywood Reporter.
But Forbes senior contributor Paul Tassi notes that critics seem to hate it -- while it's been embraced by Star Wars fans: Rise of Skywalker now has some critics calling JJ Abrams' finale effort one of the worst in the series, oftentimes even more so than the dreaded prequels. In contrast, a good chunk of fans seem to enjoy the finale and think it's a fitting end to the series, and "fixes" much of what went wrong from with The Last Jedi... You can actually see this play out in the numbers. I went through and measured the critic score versus the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes for every Star Wars film... the biggest gap in favor of fan approval, by a huge margin, is Rise of Skywalker, with fans rating it a full 31% better than the critical average...
[W]hat's going on here, really? To me, the impression I'm getting is that critics have overreacted to Rise of Skywalker's flaws just like fans overreacted to the problems with The Last Jedi. Neither of these films are even close to the worst Star Wars film in the grand list. Critics are insane to say that Rise of Skywalker is worse than movies like Attack of the Clones or Phantom Menace, so much so that it almost seems spiteful to try and make that case. And the same goes for The Last Jedi haters who would rate it as the worst Star Wars move in history by a 13% margin under the worst prequel, Attack of the Clones. Just... absolutely no way.
To sum up what happened, fans were mad that The Last Jedi took traditional Star Wars arcs and shattered them, ignoring questions like the mystery of Snoke and Rey's origins, and that the film turned Luke from shining hero to grumpy sacrificial lamb. And that's exactly what critics liked about the film, that it broke away from tropes and tried something new. That's why those same critics are so mad now, because JJ Abrams did everything possible to undo so much of what Johnson did in The Last Jedi, providing specific answers to those questions that Johnson said weren't important. Abrams sidelines lambasted characters like Rose, he mocks Last Jedi moments like the Holdo maneuver or Luke throwing away his lightsaber. It's such a complete rewrite of The Last Jedi it actually feels vengeful.
But fans like it A) because they got those Last Jedi "fixes" they were looking for and B) it was specifically...made for fans. The film is rife with fan service, which is often viewed as a negative by critics, but you know who likes fan service? Fans.
He also shares some "lessons learned" for Disney: that one person should be in charge of an entire film series, and "that maybe we don't always need a trilogy, and stories should be as long as they need to be."
"Technically JJ Abrams' Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker could have just been a two-film set, given how much of The Last Jedi was flat-out erased."
But Forbes senior contributor Paul Tassi notes that critics seem to hate it -- while it's been embraced by Star Wars fans: Rise of Skywalker now has some critics calling JJ Abrams' finale effort one of the worst in the series, oftentimes even more so than the dreaded prequels. In contrast, a good chunk of fans seem to enjoy the finale and think it's a fitting end to the series, and "fixes" much of what went wrong from with The Last Jedi... You can actually see this play out in the numbers. I went through and measured the critic score versus the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes for every Star Wars film... the biggest gap in favor of fan approval, by a huge margin, is Rise of Skywalker, with fans rating it a full 31% better than the critical average...
[W]hat's going on here, really? To me, the impression I'm getting is that critics have overreacted to Rise of Skywalker's flaws just like fans overreacted to the problems with The Last Jedi. Neither of these films are even close to the worst Star Wars film in the grand list. Critics are insane to say that Rise of Skywalker is worse than movies like Attack of the Clones or Phantom Menace, so much so that it almost seems spiteful to try and make that case. And the same goes for The Last Jedi haters who would rate it as the worst Star Wars move in history by a 13% margin under the worst prequel, Attack of the Clones. Just... absolutely no way.
To sum up what happened, fans were mad that The Last Jedi took traditional Star Wars arcs and shattered them, ignoring questions like the mystery of Snoke and Rey's origins, and that the film turned Luke from shining hero to grumpy sacrificial lamb. And that's exactly what critics liked about the film, that it broke away from tropes and tried something new. That's why those same critics are so mad now, because JJ Abrams did everything possible to undo so much of what Johnson did in The Last Jedi, providing specific answers to those questions that Johnson said weren't important. Abrams sidelines lambasted characters like Rose, he mocks Last Jedi moments like the Holdo maneuver or Luke throwing away his lightsaber. It's such a complete rewrite of The Last Jedi it actually feels vengeful.
But fans like it A) because they got those Last Jedi "fixes" they were looking for and B) it was specifically...made for fans. The film is rife with fan service, which is often viewed as a negative by critics, but you know who likes fan service? Fans.
He also shares some "lessons learned" for Disney: that one person should be in charge of an entire film series, and "that maybe we don't always need a trilogy, and stories should be as long as they need to be."
"Technically JJ Abrams' Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker could have just been a two-film set, given how much of The Last Jedi was flat-out erased."
Because of Spok (Score:2)
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You could at least write the character's name correctly: Spock [wikipedia.org].
Re: Because of Spok (Score:2)
Because of Disney (Score:2)
IMHO canon always ends the moment Disney buys something.
That includes:
* die Gebruder Grimm ("Cinderella" ("Aschenputtel"),"Sleeping Beauty" ("DornrÃschen"), and "Snow White" ("Schneewittchen"))
* Pixar (has Disney made Toy Story 6+1/2 yet)
* Hua Mulan
and everything else they didn't create themselves.
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In this case, they are buying the box office. The scummy practice of subsidising package deals to inflate ticket price, so price of ticket plus bundled drinks and food and in high end cinemas, that hugely inflates the box office. So a $10 ticket becomes a thirty dollar ticket and scummy PR douches like Jar Jar A ride that to a record box office. Want a slice of reality halve that box office to get it back to real numbers, to the days when they did not bundle a meal in with the ticket and that can be high en
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Why? Because obvious bad movies are obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
The Force Awakens was basically a rehash of previous plots and didn't really go anywhere new
The Last Jedi had so much unnecessary stuff going on that it wasted resources hand over fist
From what I have heard The Rise of Skywalker is also all over the place in order to try and tie everything together - not a good way to plan a movie
And that's not even talking about forcing the previous shot Carrie Fischer footage into Skywalker just because.
The prequels were bad for various other reasons, but they did show a progression of plot and character development (and yes I had to keep a straight face saying that)
And now for the "get off my lawn" segment. As far as I am concerned the movie was called "Star Wars". This "New Hope" crap is just revisionist history as far as I am concerned.
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I had already given up on the entire Star Wars saga after seeing The Phantom Menace. Years later, a friend talked me into watching Attack Of The Clones and Revenge Of The Sith, and it only reinforced my original impression. Then Rogue One came out, and I was very pleasantly surprised... enough so that I decided to give The Force Awakens a try when that came out. But TFA gave me that sinking feeling again, just like TPM had years before. Except for Solo (which was "ok") I haven't bothered to watch any of the
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Then Rogue One came out, and I was very pleasantly surprised... enough so that I decided to give The Force Awakens a try when that came out. But TFA gave me that sinking feeling again, just like TPM had years before.
Raeally? That's interesting because TFA came out in 2015 while Rogue One came out a whole year later in 2016.
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Good catch. Apparently that movie made such a shallow impression on me that I don't remember the order. Looking back, I suspect I probably skipped TFA entirely until after Rogue One had come out, then went back to have a look at it later.
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Then Rogue One came out, and I was very pleasantly surprised... enough so that I decided to give The Force Awakens a try when that came out. But TFA gave me that sinking feeling again, just like TPM had years before.
Raeally? That's interesting because TFA came out in 2015 while Rogue One came out a whole year later in 2016.
Yes, because once a movie is no longer playing in theaters there is absolutely no way to go back and watch it? Yeah, that must be it...
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Yup. Locked in the good old "Disney Vault.". Is that dead for good now? It seems like more of their back catalog is available Moore completely than it used to be. Though keeping the media off the shelves will help drive Disney+ subscriptions. They may go full Adobe and get rid of ownership entirely.
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"I haven't bothered to watch any of the others."
Uhhh...what others? You listed the movies you've seen and it's almost all of them. You've only missed like two of them.
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LOL, yeah, but I wish I hadn't seen II and III. ;-)
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Re:Why? Because obvious bad movies are obvious (Score:4, Interesting)
The fans like it because fans such as yourself—ones with sense—haven't participated.
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Yeah beasically it looks like they didn't really think the sequels through. They had a competent director and crew so it all kind of works but overall seems completely unnecessary and pointless. Though to be fair I've only actually seen the Rouge One film myself, everything else I'm basing on the feedback from friends and random fans and reviews.
Basically you're always going to have a group of fans that are satisfied as long as there are some lightsabers on screens and lasers go pew-pew, and another group t
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"A New Hope" is necessary because "Star Wars" is also the name of the series (or maybe universe?). Referring to the first movie as "Star Wars" as it originally was just creates confusion.
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JJ is a genius for what he did with TROS after TLJ killed off the supposed villain of the trilogy one movie early along with the plot line of the last Jedi not being trained by the ex Jedi master.
and in 1983 after the genius of ESB, what did we get? Oh, a second Death Star.
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Critics generally liked TLJ and that's why they are disappointed with TROS. All the interesting ideas and threads in TLJ we abandoned and they went with a generic McGuffin plot.
There were some nice things about it that moviegoers no doubt enjoyed, but critics tend to be looking for more than just fan service and spectacle.
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OzPeter declared:
far as I am concerned the movie was called "Star Wars". This "New Hope" crap is just revisionist history as far as I am concerned.
So, you're saying that the opening crawl I read in1976, which began with,"Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope" was just a hallucination - despite me being completely sober, wide awake, and seeing the exact same crawl again and again and again over the decades since - and that Lucas faked out everyone else who was actually paying attention to the name of the movie, too? That it was just mass hysteria, or a Jedi mind-trick, or simply a somewhat-delayed April Fool's joke by George Lucas to make u
Re:Why? Because obvious bad movies are obvious (Score:4, Informative)
OzPeter declared:
far as I am concerned the movie was called "Star Wars". This "New Hope" crap is just revisionist history as far as I am concerned.
So, you're saying that the opening crawl I read in1976, which began with,"Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope" was just a hallucination
Yes. https://collider.com/star-wars... [collider.com]
That's false memory. But you may think it's called (Score:4, Informative)
...the Mandela effect. [wikipedia.org]
So, you're saying that the opening crawl I read in1976, which began with,"Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope" was just a hallucination - despite me being completely sober, wide awake, and seeing the exact same crawl again and again and again over the decades since - and that Lucas faked out everyone else who was actually paying attention to the name of the movie, too? That it was just mass hysteria, or a Jedi mind-trick, or simply a somewhat-delayed April Fool's joke by George Lucas to make us think he started the Starwalker saga in the middle of the story - and we all fell for it?
"A New Hope" subtitle was added to the opening crawl in 1981, [wikipedia.org] after The Empire Strikes Back came out.
And it did happen for the April 10th re-release, so yeah... it can be argued that it was indeed a somewhat-delayed April Fool's joke by George Lucas.
And a very Maclunkey and a Happy New Year to you too.
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The discrepency between critics and fans scores can be explained by the fact that people who rush out to see the movie as soon as it comes are out are the fanboys who will give it a high score no matter what. Later, when the "fan" scores have been balanced out by the more casual viewers who waited until the busy Christmas season was over to go and see it, or will wait until it comes out on Netflix, you might see some convergence in the scores.
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The Last Jedi tried to *challenge* the fans. It was complicated (admittedly over-complicated) and was downright pig-headed in subverting fan expectations -- really more than necessary in my opinion.
The Rise of Skywalker, on the other hand, is all about fan service. It is eager to please and afraid of offending or getting too complicated.
This is like the whole brouhaha over Martin Scorsese's dismissal of the "Avengers" movies as being like "theme parks". He was absolutely spot on, but that doesn't mean th
Re:Why? Because obvious bad movies are obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
The Last Jedi tried to *challenge* the fans. It was complicated (admittedly over-complicated) and was downright pig-headed in subverting fan expectations -- really more than necessary in my opinion. The Rise of Skywalker, on the other hand, is all about fan service. It is eager to please and afraid of offending or getting too complicated.
That is the message being spread by movie pundits, but it misses the nuance of the fans' feelings and reactions. This narrative tries to dismiss the criticism as "toxic fandom." I would agree that the makers of The Rise of Skywalker appear to have taken the same wrong message from The Last Jedi criticisms when they tried to course correct in the latest movie.
Subverting fan expectations will win you even more devoted fans when done well. Game of Thrones did this spectacularly at least twice, with the deaths of Ned and Rob Stark. GoT did this well because it was a character driven story instead of a plot driven story. While you weren't expecting what happened, it all made sense based on the characters' values, beliefs, and motivations. The Last Jedi instead went the lazy route and made drastic changes to existing characters and made everyone act nonsensically so viewers would be kept guessing. That is not the way to subvert expectations. GoT went the same lazy route in its last season (arguably the last few seasons) and fans were similarly upset.
Rise of Skywalker arguably went a bit too far with its fan service, which was not necessary to course correct after The Last Jedi. They just needed to do service to the characters which fans have become attached to, and would have had as much creative license as they wished. They instead took the other lazy route and wrote a story which bordered on fan faction.
The critic and audience Rotten Tomato scores show this quite clearly. The Last Jedi had high critic scores because they liked the creative direction, but fans disliked it because they actually cared about the characters and franchise (while critics are for the most part agnostic about that). The Rise of Skywalker had mediocre critic scores because it was not creative or well made, but the fans rated it highly because at least it was fun for fans of the franchise.
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Actually there was an interesting essay in Scientific American about Game of Thrones, which suggests that the reason the early seasons seem fresh and the later seasons are less popular is that the early seasons are *sociological* story telling and later seasons are more conventionally character-oriented, which is to say *psychological*.
Certainly this kind of psychological story telling is the norm in pop culture. Heroes do good things because they're good people with good motivations, villains do bad things
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Actually there was an interesting essay in Scientific American about Game of Thrones, which suggests that the reason the early seasons seem fresh and the later seasons are less popular is that the early seasons are *sociological* story telling and later seasons are more conventionally character-oriented, which is to say *psychological*.
The other thing its put down to is pantsers vs planners, though I think its closely relates. GRRM is an inveterate pantser. He puts characters into interesting sitiations and
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A movie script is typically about a hundred pages long. That's double spaced with super-generous margins for making notes in. That's not a lot of room for plot, which is why movies are always extremely stripped down in comparison to their source novels. Typically a hollywood movie has two plots, and A plot and a B plot, and the B plot is told with a couple of interleaved scenes. The whole Canto Bight sequence took way too much time and killed the pacing of the movie.
This is likely an editor problem.
Re:Why? Because obvious bad movies are obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I have heard The Rise of Skywalker is also all over the place in order to try and tie everything together
SPOILER ALERT
The problem with The Rise of Skywalker (ROS) is that it shows that nothing that happened in The Original Trilogy (TOT) mattered.
In TOT, Emperor Palpatine has a vast fleet of planet-destroying ships. Luke is a new hope. He is trained by Yoda. He has visions of Obiwan. He confronts Darth Vader. He converts Vader back to the good side. They destroy the emperor and his fleet.
In ROS, Emperor Palpatine has a vast fleet of planet-destroying ships. Rey is a new hope. She is trained by Leia. She has visions of Luke. She confronts Kylo Ren. She converts Kylo back to the good side. They destroy the emperor and his fleet.
But if Palpatine isn't going to stay dead, and he can just conjure up new fleets, then what difference does it make? Why should I care?
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The problem with The Rise of Skywalker (ROS) is that it shows that nothing that happened in The Original Trilogy (TOT) mattered.
That's a good way to put it. The story arc of the first six movies is gone.
Re:Why? Because obvious bad movies are obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
The movie was so disappointing.
I did not find it disappointing.
Reason: Low expectations.
Re:Why? Because obvious bad movies are obvious (Score:4, Informative)
I would argue that The Force Awakens destroyed everything that happened in the Original Trilogy and ROS just made it worse.
In TFA, the New Republic essentially failed and a new empire (First Order) filled in the same space terrorizing the galaxy. Han turned out to be a deadbeat dad and husband who abandoned them when shit got hard. Luke abandoned the galaxy with little to no explanation. Leia is still leading a resistance/rebellion into her elderly years because apparently few young people have taken up the fight. And a new big bad apparent Sith is now going to destroy planets with a giant superweapon. So the big happy ending at the end of Episode 6 is ruined because they really didn't make the galaxy better after all.
The Last Jedi makes that story worse because it turns Luke into a shittier character, it makes it seem like the entire Galaxy doesn't even care anymore, and it makes the First Order oddly more powerful, but somehow less competent.
And the new ROS just shits on everything by making the Emperor never defeated at all. And instead of the master of working to gain power behind the scenes, now he's extremely stupid by announcing to the galaxy he's back before he has his fleet deployed. Nevermind the ridiculousness of a giant fleet of planet destroying Star Destroyers not being able to fly without some other antenna directing them or shields not working in an atmosphere...
The last movie in a 9 movie series left way too many questions that are just stupid to not explain. Was Palpatine against the First Order? Was he controlling them? Was his fleet going to combine with theirs? Who built this fleet of hundreds if not thousands of giant ships and who is manning them and keeping them supplied in secret for 30 years? Who the hell did Palpatine screw to produce children, nevermind grandchildren? What happened to the force sensitive kid with the broom? Wait, so Force Ghosts can interact with real world physical objects now? Seems like that might have been useful in the past... The Force can now heal wounds? Again, seems like that might have been useful. Oh, the Force can now stop literal starships in their tracks either just by Force Pulling or Force Lightning that disables their power? Seems like the Emperor might have used that to stop the Rebel Fleet in Episode 6... Or maybe forget the stupidity of not shooting it, Darth Vader could have used that power to grab the escape pod from Episode 4 instead of letting it get away. So many new Force abilities that break the previous movies for absolutely no payoff.
Of course (Score:2)
The Dark Side is trying to divide the Republic.
Obvious flamebait is obvious. (Score:4, Insightful)
The critics don't actually care about making a good a movie. They care about television and movies being woke af. It turns out being preached too isn't very entertaining. The consumer rating tends to be based on entertainment.
So, there is the divide and why should never watch a movie based on a critic score.
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So, there is the divide and why should never watch a movie based on a critic score.
I look forward to your review of Cats. Thus far the best thing about the movie has been reading the critics' reviews.
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So, there is the divide and why should never watch a movie based on a critic score.
I look forward to your review of Cats. Thus far the best thing about the movie has been reading the critics' reviews.
Best review of Cats that have heard is:
If this film was shown on a plane, I'd still walk out
They've already made some emergency edits to fix some FX issues - Why the hell didn't they see that coming? But I am still going to see it when it comes to DVD
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But I am still going to see it when it comes to DVD
Personally, I'm boycotting it until they put it out on Betamax.
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Which is funny, because the only reason I considered going was to see the broken VFX.
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So your post then? (Score:5, Insightful)
So by "Obvious flamebait is obvious" you mean your post then?
I ask because siting grand SJW conspiracy sure seems like flamebait to me. I mean, do you really think all of the professional critics out there got together and decided, let's push woke stuff!
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My feelings precisely. Nowadays I see vastly more anti-SJW pathetic whining than actual SJW whining.
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You really should read through some of Roger Ebert's reviews.
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They care about television and movies being woke af.
This is a big part of it. The Last Jedi resulted in that horrible fan backlash against Kelly Tran (actress who played Rose). Abrams essentially gave in to those fans, giving Rose an extremely reduced role in the new movie. She was obviously in love with Finn, etc, and that was all just dropped. So I strongly believe that at least some critics are factoring in that Abrams flat-out undid disliked plot lines, and cut back on characters, and sold out to fans. I don't think that sort of thing (meta, behind th
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9 movies to deliver a single message... (Score:4, Insightful)
...that single points of failure are a terrible idea.
I finally saw it last night, and was constantly annoyed during the first half by the woefully bad writing and storytelling. Enormous plot holes, stormtroopers who still, after 45 years, donâ(TM)t have armour that can withstand a single hit, even to a limb, and constant engineering failures because the empire still hasnâ(TM)t figured out that redundancy matters. Even biologically, itâ(TM)s the same old trope - kill the dominant bad guy and all the other bad guys fall, too. Ok, sure, that one is enough of a sci fi and fantasy trope that it is excusable, but with all of that budget for special effects, they couldnâ(TM)t have spared even the slightest budget for writers who can actually write? Isnâ(TM)t the core audience of these movies middle aged men, at this point? I was 4 when episode 4 was in theatres. And while a 12 year old may not care about writing that actually connects dots in a reasonable manner, so long as there is cool action, fx, and occasional rear end shots of hot women in tight pants, the rest of us actually do want decent storytelling, too.
It wasnâ(TM)t the worst in the series, but it was hardly good. The reason the box office is catching up is because all of us who grew up with the movies are inevitably going to go see it on the big screen, even if we know it will be a disappointment that isnâ(TM)t worth queuing for. And most of us will take our kids, too.
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They had a backup this time, what more could you ask for?
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I stopped caring when the story became fascist (Score:2)
That happened with the midichlorians. Now the universe had a super-race, superior to all others by accident of birth.
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That's ridiculously stupid.
Before The Clone Wars, the amount of Jedi in the Galaxy was around 10,000. The amount of sentients in the galactic known space is around 100 Quadrillion (source> http://geekosity.blogspot.com/... [blogspot.com]).
That gives the percentage of Jedi at 0.000000001% of the entire known galaxy population. That's not a race, it's a drop in an ocean.
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Both fascism and nazism are evil, but they're not the same. Nazism is a subset of fascism featuring the super-race.
Fascism features nationalism, totalitarianism, and big-business cronyism.
Aside from being a very, very stupid idea, the midichlorians are elitist and possibly racist. But the totalitarian aspect seems to be absent.
Re: I stopped caring when the story became fascist (Score:2)
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Yeah, because the movie in no way had metaphors to extremist politics prior to that.
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The problem is that nature of the "heroes".
Now about that "subversion" (Score:2)
The Last Jedi left a lot to fix.
It was such a broken movie. It didn't lack for amazing visuals, or an interesting set of characters starting out; as the middle of the trilogy it was the place to add more dimension. It wasn't that strong and equal female characters and liberated themes were of themselves anything but deserving of a believable story, just like the rest of the movie would have benefited from a moment to look at believable stories.
It just took a joy-buzzer approach to all of that. You know,
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You know, that stupid prank gadget? "I'm shaking your hand! Nope, it's an electric shock! Aren't we clever!"
It's ok, that can all be fixed with another Death Star, this time the size of a sun.
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Critics vs Fans (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was at university, I had a friend who, before he went to see a movie, would dutifully read the review in the campus newspaper. If the critics liked it, he figured it would be awful and didn't go see it. If the critics blasted it, he figured it must be pretty fun.
I heard once that you should only really review a genre that you like. If you dislike science fiction in general, then your review of any particular scifi book is going to be pretty worthless, since it's probably going to be mainly criticizing things you dislike about the genre in general. Only someone who actually likes scifi can tell a good scifi book from a bad one.
The same one probably holds for The Rise of Skywalker. Come critics seemed to like The Last Jedi because it dissed the whole "Jedi religion" thing, because it said your heritage and parenting and "destiny" didn't matter. But you know what? The whole thing with "ancient religion", "destiny", and wrestling with your heritage were a core part of what people liked about the films. If that's not your thing, why did you watch the movie? If you want to tell a story about space wizards that doesn't have those things, why don't you make your own fictional universe, rather than trying to change someone else's?
When the main complaints about "The Rise of Skywalker" from critics were, "It goes back on all the new direction that the Last Jedi introduced", I knew I was probably going to enjoy the film. One has to expect a certain number of things one has to overlook. (After two Death Stars were blown up, why on earth did they want to build a third one in The Force Awakens? Don't want to give any spoilers, but there are questionable decisions on the part of the Bad Guys of a similar nature.) And I enjoyed it more than I was expecting. It was a good, fun film, in the Star Wars tradition, and there's nothing wrong with that.
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Personally I think the real trick to critic reviews is to find a critic with similiar overall taste in movies as you. What good does it do you to read a review from a Star Wars fan if you're a non-fan?
The late Roger Ebert was such a reviewer for me. His reviews didn't 100% match my own opinions on movies but they came pretty close. Unfortunately I've been too lazy since his death to find a new reviewer I can trust.
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You are right that "wrestling with heritage", "destiny" and "ancient religions" are core appeals of the first trilogy, but the story arc was that they were nightmares from which Luke was able to awake.
To jump right back into them and make them the theme of the next trilogy is cheap and repetitive, not to mention a depressing backslide.
Why the heck are the adult fans of the original Star Wars content with a mere re-hash?
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A good critic would be aware of their own bias and write around that.
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"I heard once that you should only really review a genre that you like. If you dislike science fiction in general, then your review of any particular scifi book is going to be pretty worthless, since it's probably going to be mainly criticizing things you dislike about the genre in general. Only someone who actually likes scifi can tell a good scifi book from a bad one. "
I don't hate sci-fi "in general". Only space opera infused with toxic doses of non-relativistic fantasy.* Do I count among those you'd b
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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kick George Lucas out of his 30 million dollar mansion and make him eat ramen for a month in a cramped studio apartment in Downey. Once George found out being a businessman is more lucrative than being a creative person, the entire franchise was dead on arrival.
I like that idea. Maybe it will drive him to create another great movie like THX-1138.
No not a sequel, nor a series . . . but something new, creative and creepy-scary.
Although, looking around today, it seems that we have all that was in THX-1138 now.
Except the criminal drug evasion.
Re:because rote sequelism is exhausting for everyo (Score:4, Insightful)
in a word: Invent. take real risks. hire people with little realtime experience fellating executives and cranking out blockbuster turds that bomb at the office consistently. Recognize that if you do not change course, the fans willing to tolerate ripoff sequelitis will eventually find better franchises to support.
...or just, you know, faithfully screen amazing books which are already there for the taking.
Spin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(novel))
A Fire Upon The Deep (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep)
Camouflage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camouflage_(novel))
Tuf Voyaging (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuf_Voyaging)
Most of Greg Egan's books.
Most of Serge Brussolo's books.
Many of Greg Bear's books
to name a few.
The book world is filled to the brim with great stories ripe for putting on screens. It's simple. Just don't slaughter the book, please, like they've done with Riverworld, twice already.
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The book world is filled to the brim with great stories ripe for putting on screens. It's simple. Just don't slaughter the book, please, like they've done with Riverworld, twice already.
Netflix supposedly has the rights to the Scalzi's Old Man's War series. They have been doing some innovative stuff recently so I am hopeful that they won't screw it up
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no matter how badly these studios want to believe it, no one wants formulaic and predictable, mediocre sequels that churn on fanservice and lazy writing at the fifth grade level at the behest of studio execs trying to "capture" the widest audience.
How does "rote sequelism" explain why critics liked Episode 8 more than audiences, and audiences like Episode 9 more than critics?
Yawn (Score:2)
Not the worst, but pretty low down (Score:2)
I didnâ(TM)t like Rise, although the second half was better than the first. Very sloppy film making, far too much exposition, too much going on (made me really appreciate how slowly Episode 4 was paced). Stupid plot twists, Chewie is dead, oh no he isnâ(TM)t, 3PO has lost his memory, wait no, there was a backup, âoeIâ(TM)m the moleâ etc. Yet an other quirky droid. Too many new characters. And the kiss was totally unnecessary.
There was a good film in there somewhere, the sabre battle
Fans can't overreact to the flaws.. (Score:4, Insightful)
... of the Last Jedi, because they're the end customers. The product was purportedly made for them.
If the customers aren't happy the product is bad. And The Last Jedi was bad. The writers, producer and director made it perfectly clear they hate Star Wars, they hate the fans, and they really hate men.
May the film be remade and the producer and directors names be stricken from Star Wars history.
The Rise of Skywalker would have been better if they didn't lose so much time cleaning up the mess of Episode 8.
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The Rise of Skywalker would have been better if they didn't lose so much time cleaning up the mess of Episode 8.
Dramatically reducing Leia's role would would have made the biggest difference.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Paul Tassi is a hack fraud (Score:2)
> Neither of these films are even close to the worst Star Wars film in the grand list
The Last Jedi was unconditionally the worst Star Wars movie, regardless of whatever "Grand List" this idiot has decreed is inclusive. I include the Christmas Special (which was awkward and bad) and the Ewok Movies (which were good), et al.
Ever Since JJ..... (Score:3)
I used to be a BIG fan of the Starwars franchise, but since JJ Abrams/Disney got their claws into it, its gone down the shithole. I MAY watch this when it comes out on DVD/Redbox in a few months. I DAMN sure am NOT going to go waste the $$$ that seeing it on the "less_than_big_screen".... Fuck Disney and JJ.. And a special fuck_you to JJ for fucking up the Startrek franchise also.......
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Wasn't the movie supposed to come out last year but they got rid of the director and brought in JJ to fix it up?
And finally (Score:5, Interesting)
We'll be having this same conversation in 20 or 30 years when discussing the reboot of Star-wars because Hollywood *still* won't have any fresh ideas.
Enjoyable movie with an ending that makes no sense (Score:2)
Warning: spoilers.
Rise of Skywalker has many nice moments, with nods to the past movies.
It has several plot holes that you barely notice because of the fast-paced action.
Overall it's an enjoyable movie, except for the ending where Rey faces Palpatine, which has one of the biggest logical gaps in the movie. Palpatine explains to Rey that if she kills him, she will concentrate all the power of the Sith, by virtue of her bloodline. This makes an interesting dilemma in the story. She wants to kill him, but she
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All that is forgotten a few minutes later when she does effectively kill him.
He sort of kills himself. She Medusa-mirror's him.
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It's basically a mirror death to the way Mace Windu almost kills him in Revenge of the Sith
BECAUSE IT CREATES HYPE! It is trolling! (Score:2)
Jesus, this strategy is older than dirt!
It is what Goering used; remember the quote?
It is literally precisely the original (Jargon File) definition of trolling!
(No, kids, "doesn't fit my world view" is not what trolling means.)
Fan like it ? WHERE ? (Score:2)
Its 'Star Wars' (Score:2)
It's 2019 (Score:2)
Because it's a movie and it's 2019.
TLJ is the worst but thereâ(TM)s a reason (Score:2)
They could have done so much better (Score:2)
Carefully avoiding spoilers, all I can say is, the origins of Rey, as explained in the movie is pathetic,
The answer is simple. (Score:2)
JJ Abrams is very polarizing (Score:5, Insightful)
J.J. Abrams is not a great director at all. He is a safe director. There's a huge difference between being great and being safe. Disney knows this. Everybody knows this. Abrams isn't going to push any envelopes. He's not going to wow you with his technical expertise and his films aren't going to have some kind of "Wow! I never saw that coming!" moments in them. Except maybe Star Trek (the 1st of the ongoing reboot series) did with the major change to the timeline. But in general, Abrams isn't going to screw it up like Episode 1 and 2 where in the first case you've got all action and no plot and in the 2nd you've got all plot and no action. Episode 9 has a lot of action and if you don't stop much to think about what you just saw (I will avoid spoilers, but one major plot line honestly wasn't explained at all as to how it's even possible), you should find it fun to watch. But Abrams is honestly a jerk of a person. He deliberately puts lens flares in his films because he is childish and he thinks it's absolutely hilarious that people hate them. Lens flares are mistakes/defects. He puts them in for fun. And let's not forget his whole speech some years ago about how he personally was going to save the Star Trek fan films by interceding with CBS/Paramount and what ended up as his supposed "saving" was a set of rules so hard that it put them all out of business. Nobody will ever make a serious Trek fan film again because of the rules Abrams agreed to. OK, one group (Star Trek Continues) is finishing a few because they legally raised their money as a non-profit prior to the new rules, so CBS/Paramount has agreed that they can keep going until they run out of money, but they can't raise any new funds. But if you were to meet Abrams and ask him about this, he would brag to you about how great he was and how pro-fan he is and how he saved the Trek fan films when nobody else did, when in fact he drove a permanent stake into their hearts and nailed the coffin door shut. And he remakes everything. Episode 7 is a remake of Episode 4. One of my friends says Episode 9 is a remake of Episode 6 and he's not wrong to say that. Star Trek Into Darkness was truly a remake of Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Kahn. So Abrams is merely a guy with no original ideas any more who is going to competently give you what you've already seen from other films by other directors but it will be OK enough that most people won't complain and it will deliver at the box office. That's it.
Disney plays it safe is they get crucified when they don't. Disney let's Marvel do what Marvel does. They stay out of their way. Dark Phoenix wasn't even a Disney film. It was a Fox film that Disney inherited by buying parts of Fox. It did poorly at the box office and Disney stock got crucified for months as a result. Their stock lost real money for a film they didn't even make. I thought Solo and Rogue One were really good, particularly Rogue One, but I know Star Wars fans who hate both. Episode 8 got a lot of negative press too, so Disney has learned that if they use Abrams, he's a really safe bet to deliver the box office because when they have tried to use other people, too many "fans" bitch about it.
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In general I totally agree with you. Where I disagree is about Solo. That came off as a bunch of set pieces designed to show off how Han got all of his accoutrements. Oh look, Han is meeting a Wookie, I wonder who that is? Oh look Han is being given a particular blaster, I wonder how long he'll keep it? Oh look, Han is going to win a spaceship in a card game. I wonder what ship it will be. Yes, it was potentially good to have a back story for Han, but all of those set pieces is Solo were inevitable.
Extremophiles at the movies (Score:2)
The movies just suck...period. (Score:2)
But because of tribalism there are people who will bury their heads in the sand and never accept this fact.
The older I get, the less I have issues with it... (Score:2)
I read a blog the other day that really hit home for me. Wish I kept the URL, or i would link it here!
The author pointed out that most of the original "hard core/true" Star Wars fans are of the age group where we saw the original trilogy as kids or pre-teens. Not only that, but in that time period, a kid with a big imagination and an interest in science-fiction stories or settings didn't have a lot of material to view, period. I remember loving the original Battlestar Galactica TV series when it came out, a
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I wouldn't have minded a bit more explanation on Snoke than Palpatine off handedly saying "I made him." We're talking about the major antagonist of the first two films of this trilogy. Was he literally a puppet? It's almost as if Abrams and the writers went "Well fuck, he was a pretty shitty stand in for the Emperor, so fuck that, let's bring back the Emperor!
That being said, the scenes with Palpatine were genuinely creepy and atmospheric.
It sucked (Score:5, Interesting)
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All of them! Star Wars sucks, Star Trek rules!
Yes Wesley.
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Shut up, Wesley!
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This. The Rotten Tomatoes Audience score history for Rise of Skywalker is highly suspect and very unlikely without tampering.
More info and some data showing the rating history remaining always at 86% here [reddit.com].
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