Because Iain M Banks requires some brain usage. I’ve read a fair few of his books, and while I enjoyed them, they do require concentrating and thinking, about somehard science concepts sometimes (Hmm…maybe that’s why I enjoyed them,) and the Culture is a bit too deus ex machina imho…
Star Wars is not in any way, shape or form a brain burner. It isn’t supposed to be. It’s entertainment of a different sort.
It’s the difference imho between actual opera and ballet versus theatre and movies.
Both are art, but how many times have you gone to the opera or ballet? Versus the theatre or movies?
Fwiw, I am going to my first ballet end of May. And I am 34 years old.
I don’t mean this as an attack, more just a reasoning why I don’t see Banks’ novels ever becoming as popular a movie series as SW.
I admit, eventhough I loathed Last Jedi (for its terrible treatment of OT characters and generally shitty writing combined with cringe), I had goosebumbs watching this teaser. Of course that glorious music is responsible for for those. I think I would get them if I watched a paint dry with this soundtrack.
But I am curious what JJ is going to do with it. I have a hit and miss relationship with JJ’s past stuff (I love Alias and Mission Impossible 3, but found SW TFA very underwhelming, mostly in its total lack of anything original or interesting), so my mind is open, maybe he will surprise me this time, the good way.
I am more interested in the Fallen Order though. Chris Avellone writing that one. Reminds me that I should do my replay of KOTOR 2, which is still the best SW thing ever.
Which is fine, but if you’re not going to make me care about the setting, make me care about the characters. Lost Rey and Emo Vader are OK, in a Young Adult way, but everyone else seems to be there just because the plot demands someone to be there so the battle between out-of-nowhere super-good and kick-all-the-puppies super-evil has some background.
I’ve found it really, really hard to care about any of them. At least TLJ had something to say about the setting, even if I’d seen it before.
I really don’t know what people are talking about when they say this. I loved old Luke and Leia. I honestly don’t see how TLJ is any worse than any of the other Disney films. They’re all heavy on spectacle and fanservice, light on plot coherence.
I do care about Finn and Poe as well. I find it weird that you don’t. Stoked for EP IX and I will bow out now as the grumpiness and negativity towards it is harshing my mellow.
I just can’t forgive the bombers “dropping” their bombs in all the weightless vastness of space while being grouped so closely together when one blows they all do.
Sure there are plenty of instances of this type of crap in SW, but for some reason, probably because of video games, this one completely stood out for me and I couldn’t get past it.
In Ep X, Rey can be the fat looser clown instead of Luke, and everyone will be just okay with it, right? No one is going to complain? And Finn can be the old has-been douchebag cargo smuggler with a bowcaster.
Yeah, this stuff happens all the time in Star Wars. I was bothered by it a little bit, but whatevs, it’s Star Wars. That’s a strange reason to hate that film more than the others.
I can’t tell if this is snark. We’re talking about Luke: the whiny kid from Tatooine who recklessly abandoned his training, and was easily manipulated by the Emperor using his anger and fear? The way they aged his character was my favorite thing about TLJ. I thought it was totally consistent. So, if we get a movie in 40 years, when Daisy Ridley is in her late 60’s, and Rey is, you know, in her 60’s too and a little cranky, I won’t be disappointed. I’ll happily drag my 80-something body to the theater to check it out.
I suppose Finn finding out what not being a clone trooper is is interesting, but I don’t think he’s getting anymore defined than just doing the opposite. And Poe is all over the place trying to ape the rascal cock-sure attitude of Solo without showing why he deserves to be special out of all the pilots in the resistance.
I’m willing to be convinced that it’s still an interesting setting, I’ve watched both sequels despite expecting just the usual JJ. But the gravitas just falls as flat to me as (most times, not always) that the MCU tries to be serious, you can’t earn that with cardboard stereotypes.
It’s definitely possible to add enough in 2:30h or whatever EP IX has to make me care, I just don’t think a straightforward good vs evil story can cut it after they created Ken and Rey backstories.
He got his revenge, he got redemption for his father, he got mastery of his discipline by himself when no one expected it… and it didn’t matter, because the galaxy doesn’t care, he’s not that useful anymore and his predecessors were self-centered idiots who gave him no clue on where to go from “victory”. Why wouldn’t he be bitter?
Luke being grumpy and sucking alien tits I can take. Luke even for a second considering murdering his nephew in his sleep, I can’t take. Luke dying via long distance skype call in a way that had zero emotional resonance with me, I can’t take. Leia flying around in vacuum, fuck off with that nonsense already. Yes The Force is nice. It ain’t That Nice.
Note that I had lot more issues with TLJ than just this. The whole structure of that movie just doesn’t work. The one thing I can praise are the visuals. It’s a good looking film.
The backstories don’t need more, they’re young. The story is about them coming of age choosing different paths, but it feels like they’re still dwelling on the past and reacting instead of owning it.
Unrelated, but it occurred to me that having their genders swapped would’ve been interesting.
Thus they begin to slowly work in the Expanded Universe when Chewie, desperately trying to get the Ewoks to see reason, is crushed to death when the nascent half-death Star falls back to “earth” on its first test flight.
“We heard the fans’ demands for more EU content, so we turned to top storywriter R.A. Salvatore to pen the ultimate finale for the Skywalker ninetology.”
