The Hermit's Journey. To arms, prequel defenders, to arms!

[Fixer]

If you like the prequels, then like me, please defer to the novels. And I'm mostly speaking about Matt Stover's novelization of Revenge of the Sith here. It is just so amazingly written that it fixes I'd say 95 to 98% of the film's problems, like dialogue, and character motivations making far more sense. Then again, you do have more freedom to explore internal thoughts and feelings in a book, so I guess that's not surprising. But seriously, if you want an example, then look at this.

That's honestly really good, it expands so much on the implied relationship with Palpatine and Anakin and you can see his actual seduction to the dark side and undermining of his faith in the Jedi there.

His change in the movies was so quick it felt like whiplash. From zero to child murder in under 8 seconds.

[Yukaphile]

And that didn't even cover half of what goes on in that book. See, for a while, the Jedi had been investigating leads into who Sidious was, and in the novel it's said they had traced Sidious to Palpatine's inner circle, so it makes them feel less clueless like in the movie. Yoda also reflects that he had been too arrogant, too rigid in his instruction of the Jedi, which explains how they had failed to correctly predict the Sith's next move (it's even said that the Jedi still thought of this as the same wars between the Sith and Jedi that had been going on before Bane reformed the order). Palpatine asserts that he had been reading about the Sith, while in the film he wasn't even bothering to maintain his cover. Mace Windu is aghast that they are talking about overthrowing the Chancellor while in the movie he supported it. And then Order 66 is also given only once (while in the movie Palps was calling up like 10,000 or so clone commanders one at a time, which is frankly ridiculous). And so on and so forth. I would greatly recommend it over the movie any day. Hell, I'd recommend it over the new stuff Disney is putting out, lol.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

While watching The X-Files season 11, it occurred to me that a lot of people try way too hard to explain Lucas' shortcomings, as if a man of his talent making subpar movies is unprecedented somehow. The fact is that it's not unusual at all.

Take Chris Carter and The X-Files. He's always had some bad tendencies with his style of storytelling, but he has directed and written some all-time classic episodes of television, and of course he originated the classic, now oft-imitated dynamic between his two leads (granted the actors' chemistry has something to do with it as well). If you look at his last few episodes of television, however, they aren't just failed, bold experiments- his last episode of The X-Files was shockingly bad on every level. The other writers can still bring it, but his last few episodes haven't just been poor by prestige tv standards, but by the standards of run-of-the-mill tv.

Take the friend of Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola. In the 70s he directed The Godfather I and II, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now. He's had a couple decent movies since then, but you would hardly know he's the same director. By way of contrast, Spielberg keeps churning out mostly good stuff into his 70s.

I'm not saying there isn't value in finding the explanation for the prequels, but more to say that people have been too hard on a guy who was operating outside his comfort zone in trying to be an auteur. And that there have been worse failures by directors/writers/artists who weren't overstepping their talents.

[Winter]

Just a side note, after watching The Last Jedi I've been going on a Star Wars binge and have been comparing TLJ to other Star Wars contrast and one thing I find both funny and a bit annoying is that a number of scenes in TLJ seem to have more in common with Spaceballs than they do with Star Wars. Rose and Finn are arrested for Illegal parking, Rey's scene in the dark side cave is almost idenitcal to the We're at Now Now scene, Kylo Ren talks to inanimate objects when they're alone, (okay that one was done in The Force Awakens but the point still stands), Snoke's ship is propably bigger then Spaceball One which means that if you tried to walk the length of it the whole series would be over. And even things like Snoke throwing around Hux for his failure are most dramatic versions of Dark Helmet and Ren blaming Rey for Snoke's death and using his ring to do "That" when one of his men goes over his helmet and Dark Helmet blaming the death of a film crew member on Lonstar respectfully.

But going off topic its weird, I like the Prequels despite their flaws so why am I not offering the same curtsy to TLJ.?

[J!!]

because when fans like something, they will bend themselves into pretzels to justify and rationalize every flaw and plot-hole, no matter how big. trying to convince themselves that the thing is actually as good as they want to believe it is.

and when fans hate something, they will nitpick and exaggerate every single inconsequential imperfection into some massive failure or betrayal. trying to convince themselves that the thing is actually as bad as they want to believe it is.

[Winter]

because when fans like something, they will bend themselves into pretzels to justify and rationalize every flaw and plot-hole, no matter how big. trying to convince themselves that the thing is actually as good as they want to believe it is.

and when fans hate something, they will nitpick and exaggerate every single inconsequential imperfection into some massive failure or betrayal. trying to convince themselves that the thing is actually as bad as they want to believe it is.

But that's the thing, I don't want to hate TLJ and I don't think I do. I mean I HATE the D-squad arc from The Clone Wars but that was mostly for the General Toad thing for being an insufferable twat that was willing to let hundreds of soldiers on his own side die and had to be guilt tripped into staying and when he did I don't think he did anything that useful.

And in regards to TLJ when I went into it I wasn't thinking about the plot threads or the mysteries being solve as I care more about characters and consistent stories. For all he flaws of The Phantom Menace I did enjoy it and I felt feeling entertained, same with The Force Awakens and Attack of the Clones. But while watching TLJ I just couldn't get invested in anything and I just don't get why.

And yes I know The Empire Strikes Back had a mixed reception I remembering watching it as a kid on VHS and liking it less than A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. But as the years went on I found myself enjoying it more and more and now it's tied with A New Hope as my favorite film of all time. I also remember reading, with great difficulty because of my dyslexia, The Thrawn Trilogy and not enjoying it as much the original Trilogy but just like with Empire I came to love the trilogy as a whole as much as the original trilogy.

But here's the thing, with Empire I didn't like as much as A New Hope and RotJ because it was scary and the heroes lost and got hurt and The Thrawn Trilogy I mostly didn't like because of my damn dyslexia and the fact that there was so much more political talk and fewer space battles, lightsaber duels and people throwing lighting at one another.

But now as an adult these are the elements that I like and help elevate the stories to new heights. But With TLJ I just get the feeling, and this is just my opinion, that the creators are just cutting corners and having characters do some questionable things for the sake of plot. Even as a kid I admired Thrawn and Vader for their cunning and determination. I of course wanted them to be stopped and see my heroes win but the villains were worthy opponents. And even with reading being rather difficult I still found Mara Jade to be the most awesome character in the series and was so happy when she freed herself from the Emperor.

I think my biggest issue with TLJ is the fact that Rey has no real talent of her own, it was revealed by one of the creative consultants that Rey is pretty much downloading how to use the Force from Kylo Ren's brain, which means, (as Linkara once put it) Yay she didn't have to earn it and go through any hard work. In contrast the most notable times Mara used the force, throughout the trilogy, was to left a some debris to detract a bounty hunter so she could shot him, tried and failed to force chock Thrawn for double crossing her, pulled Leia's lightsaber to her to kill Luke's clone, and communicate telepathically with Luke and Leia.

Meanwhile Rey has been able to do things that it took, Anakin, Luke and Mara years to learn in only a few short weeks.

I don't know maybe I am just nitpicking and over exaggerating but just on its own I didn't really enjoyed TLJ as much as I wanted to and when compared to even the parody of SW it felt weaker by comparison. I'm not signing any petitions and I do hope that Episode 9 is great but I am holding out hope that at some point Disney will just adapt The Thrawn Trilogy so we can at least see those amazing moments in the books on the big screen.

[Yukaphile]

I think it has to do with how movies have changed in the last 40 years. I mean, there's complaints that it's too much CGI, that Hollywood is running out of ideas and doing nothing original. I dunno, there's just something... soulless in modern movies, at least for me. They feel sterile. Predictable.

[Winter]

I think it has to do with how movies have changed in the last 40 years. I mean, there's complaints that it's too much CGI, that Hollywood is running out of ideas and doing nothing original. I dunno, there's just something... soulless in modern movies, at least for me. They feel sterile. Predictable.

I don't really agree, because, in my opinion, the last two years have been amazing for films, games, comics and TV Shows. Here's a quick list of a few great stories from last year alone.

Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, War for the Planet of the Apes, TLOK Turf Wars Part 1, Uncharted The Lost Legacy, Blade Runner 2049, Tomb Raider: Choice and Sacrifice and Horizon: Zero Dawn.

And from 2016 we got Deadpool, Zootopia, Captain America: Civil War, Star Trek Beyond, Doctor Strange, The Last Guardian, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and DC Rebirth has been pretty amazing throughout the last two years and the resent Doomsday Clock has been pretty awesome as well.

Have there been bad, predictable or just plain boring stories, yes but truth be told I think we're gotten more good stories then bad.

[unknownsample]

I haven't even seen The Last Jedi, but from what I've heard, I think it's pretty stupid.

So despite not seeing the TLJ your're going to pass judgement on it anyway. If your going to slag a film, go and see it first.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I think it has to do with how movies have changed in the last 40 years. I mean, there's complaints that it's too much CGI, that Hollywood is running out of ideas and doing nothing original. I dunno, there's just something... soulless in modern movies, at least for me. They feel sterile. Predictable.

I think that's a natural effect of audiences mostly remembering the, well, memorable older movies. The soulless CGI fests will be forgotten will be forgotten by most, just as the soulless and derivative movies of the past were forgotten by most.

There are movies being made that will only benefit from time and will be looked back on as classics of the era. The Lord of the Rings is an example of a fairly recent classic, imo, and arguably the best of its genre. I think Blade Runner 2049 is going to go down as one of the great sci-fi films, and possibly the best sci-fi film of the 21st century thus far.