I will go to see this movie, probably 3-4 weeks after release. But I think of all the Star Wars releases this one excites me the least.
This year is too packed with big releases. I usually go to the theater 3 times a year or so. This year I’ve already been to Black Panther and Infinity War.
But now comes a new Star Wars movie, new Deadpool, new Incredibles, new Ant man, new Mission Impossible, Venom, new Predator, new Fantastic Beasts, new Mary Poppins. Some of those will be easy to skip in the theater. Others not. I’m very tempted by Solo, just because I loved Last Jedi so much, I REALLY want to go see more Star Wars.
I’m kind of the opposite. I’ve become so disheartened with this franchise, I didn’t even go to see Last Jedi - the first SW movie I skipped seeing at the theater. But something about this one makes me want to see it. Despite that we’re apparently going to be seeing Han’s previously mentioned exploits, and the Omnipotent Foot of Disney on its neck, the trailer makes it look kind of fast and loose, which is how a SW movie should be.
Or maybe I’ve just jinxed it, and it’ll jump to the front of the long line of cumbersome and overproduced Star Wars films.
The last Star Wars I saw in the theater was Revenge of the Sith, which according to Camille Paglia is the greatest artwork of the past 30 years:
Well, if you don’t make bold statements, I guess there’s no point in being a celebrity critic.
Were you comatose during the aftermath of The Last Jedi? The movie — and it’s gushing critics — reveled in how it tore down the old conventions of Star Wars. Surely they will continue to move on.
And yet, here we are eight movies in dealing with the same old themes. Cantankerous old Jedi master who isn’t accepting new pupils and is harboring a past failure? Learner who decides to abandon their training in order to help friends? Who believes that the opponent they’ve been set up against can be turned away from their dark path? A desperate pursuit across space, a last minute escape from a stronghold on an icy/salty planet? These are tweaks. There was nothing new here. Except Benicio Del Toro, he was pretty awesome.
Since Homer there have only been three possible stories. Man versus man, man versus nature, and man versus Sith.
Yeah, I went into TLJ thinking “finally they are doing something new” because of the critics, then it is the same old shit over and over, just with a new coat of paint. I can’t even be bothered to bag it.
begs to differ!
Ever since True Detective (and to lesser degree Almost 17), I’ve been a huge Woody Harrelson fan.
The cast in this looks great, and so I’m optimistic.
Well of the three new SW’s movies I have enjoyed …
SW7
Rogue One
TLJ
No doubt we have done this before. :)
TLJ had it’s good moments, but it also had it’s bad ones. I don’t understand the dislike of SW7.
How about apathy? Is that a valid response?
I just wonder what people wanted in SW7. Had it been a new story that featured nothing from the past I can just imagine how the same people would complain.
I think I’ve said this before so you’ll pardon me if I’m repeating myself, but I was totally into the movie right up until they showed the Starkiller base. Then I could actually feel my heart sink. Oh. It’s going to be this again.
I think there’s got to be a happy medium between having “nothing from the past” and having “the same story we’ve showed you twice before.”
Yea, that was maybe a call back to many. But I think the personal interactions were what made the movie, let’s face it, SW has never been very original with their weapons of destruction.
Sadly SW8 featured slow moving bombers in space.
SW has always had a fantastical model of space combat explicitly patterned on WWII naval battles. That’s not my issue with the dumb shit in TLJ so much as the obvious middle fingers to Newtonian physics like the bombers (also, apparently Dreadnoughts create their own gravity wells? That sounds like a shit idea for a space battleship) and the whole “we have enough fuel to go here, but no farther, because apparently space friction is a thing?” Fuck you.
Then there’s also the rest of TLJ, which outside of some sweet space wizard fights was woof. But anyway.
The larger issue IMO is that there are so many interesting stories you could tell in Star Wars, but Disney so far is cleaving so tightly to the Skywalker/Solo thing that it’s suffocating creativity.
I do legit love Adam Driver as Kylo Ren though. He’s awesome, and that character is the most interesting thing to come out of Disney (though Rogue One is pretty darn good on its own merits too, so there’s that).
I didn’t like Adam Driver in the first movie but actually did think he was great in the second, so I will go with the theory that it was the writing and directing of his character I didn’t like.
It felt like people trying really hard not to screw something up rather than actually making a thing.
It wasn’t actually unpleasant to watch, per se. It just had no raison d’etre and I didn’t care about what was happening!
But I feel about Star Wars about the same as I feel about Alien. Everything after the first two entries and a few videogames can be more or less dispensed with.
Yeah. I find it rewatchable and there’s a lot of decent action and some world building jammed into it, but given what happened in TLJ I hate that they got rid of Han even more, as well as the entire “new republic” and fleet, and then in TLJ turned the New Order into keystone cop bigoted clowns.
On the one hand, I feel that SW7 should be elevated relative to TLJ, but on the other hand knowing how so much seeded will amount to nothing and the entire old cast will be discarded like Han into a pit actually makes me with none of these movies were ever made.
I wonder how reaction would have been if, instead of Episode 7-9, the only new Star Wars movies were additional prequels like Rogue One and Solo. Definitely wouldn’t have been as much of a phenomenon and people would gripe about wanted Episode 7, but otherwise curious how they’d be regarded.