ILM effects reel released.
Behind the Magic? Really? Pfft. It’s all CG to me.
-Tom
Neat. I didn’t like the tropical island setting of the second half of the movie, though. It felt very fake.
Tony Gilroy dishes some dirt.
Never have so many done so little for so much.
-Tom
So Disney got a little bit lucky there with a last-minute fix-it man. Awakens was atrocious, Last Jedi an abomination, they got lucky with Rogue One, and Solo’s production has had its issues and could likewise continue a fairly strong trend of Disney really f’n this franchise up in almost all known ways to Sunday.
Sad to hear that Last Jedi was bad. I really did like Rogue One.
I’ve… enjoyed them all to varying amounts.
It was not bad. It is just a few people here seem to relish dumping on anything popular or anything that does not try to be pretentious. The average rating of critics on Jedi was 8.1 and a 92% Rotten Tomatoes rating on 372 reviews. Either you can believe a couple of curmudgeons here or 300+ professional film critics who seemed to believe it was enjoyable.
That does not mean they are not entitled to their opinion. It is just important to recognize that their opinion is quite the minority one. I am sure there are people who also hate Schnidler’s List, Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Fahrenheit 451 but those are popular for a reason.
I mean it has problems when evaluating as part of the franchise. But, yeah, it also has some things I really like.
Also @John_Reynolds has a very… unique take on the LotR films. So take his visceral negativity on the topic with appropriate adjustment to your personal view @Papageno.
That said, one thing I agree with John on is that Rogue One is the best of the new films.
The three things you listed are works of art that provoke interesting discussions that are worthwhile having whether you ultimately like or dislike the work.
The Last Jedi is the latest entertainment sausage from Disney that provokes discussions like “person 1: it is a terrible movie for all these reasons”, “person 2: eh, I thought it was enjoyable, a good way to pass a couple of hours”.
I don’t think the complainers here are clamoring for more pretentiousness, they just wanted a Star Wars movie that will be remembered 5+ years from now like the original trilogy. Whether that is even possible anymore, well not from Disney at least. The vast majority of film critics who review Disney movies are measuring its success using very different criteria.
Speaking of the Disneyification of Star Wars, this quote nails it on the head:
THIS IS A MOVIE ABOUT SACRIFICE, PROBLEM SOLVED. Hey, I enjoyed Rogue One for what it is, but why does every Disney movie have to have a message and/or theme that can be encapsulated in a single word? It’s not even a single german word, which can convey more than many English paragraphs.
I kinda hated Rogue One.
I mean, I knew that everyone was going to die. But once they did, I stopped having fun. I don’t like sad movies :(
Hated is a strong word. But it sits barely above the prequels in my internal ranking.
Then again, my internal ranking is probably RotJ > ANH > TFA > TESB > TLJ > RO > RotS > TPM > AotC, so I dunno how much people will respect the Stat Wars opinions who thinks Empire is the 4th best one at most.
Well, but you were only robbed of about 30 seconds of fun before the credits rolled. And you got the Vader hallway scene, which was the absolute highlight of the entire movie.
It was one of those retroactive losses of enjoyment. The Logan comparison is strong for me. Which is an argument I’ve made too many times around here to risk annoying everyone with again ;-)
But in essence, the rather dismal and dire ending kinda spoiled the fun and drama of the preceding couple of hours in a lot of ways.
The Vader scene was pretty bitchin’, though.
You cray, @ArmandoPenblade . Everyone knows that TESB is the best of the Star Wars movies. Y U hate America? ;-)
The Last Jedi is something very special. It made me finally understand for the first time why Star Wars has such passionate fans beyond what most movie franchises have. It’s a movie worth being passionate about.
They fucked it up all the way to the bank. :)
I liked Rogue One. I liked Awakens. I think the Last Jedi has some real problems though.
And having just finished watching the two videos on the making of the Hobbit in that thread, I don’t think Disney has done too bad by the Star Wars movies.
I’m with you. It’s neck and neck with Empire, but it gets extra points for being a complete thing, and managing to establish a whole universe in just one movie.
I still remember my mom taking me to see Star Wars in the theater. I was five years old, it was just magical. Nothing else has really compared to it.