Solo: A Star Wars Story

[Winter]

TLJ's general public reception seems to be getting worse and worse as time goes on. It's a movie that becomes more flawed the more time you devote to thinking about it.

What about the Prequels themselves, maybe it's just me but they seem to have been better received as time goes on. Not as good as the Original Trilogy or the Thrawn Trilogy but still, not terrible. I mean just comparing the villains, and again this is just my opinion, but it really says something when Nute Gunray is a more accomplished, more competent and less whiny then all the villains of the Disney Era combined. Also it really Really says something when Jar Jar Binks proves to be more useful and indeed helpful to the heroes then Rose who nearly got the entire Rebellion killed because she liked Finn.

Don't get me wrong, the Prequels are still flawed, the dialogue is poorly written, there is to much CGI, (though that never bothered me personally), the romance is painful, (and this is coming from someone who is a serious romantic ((The Last Naruto Movie and The Legend of Korra Turf Wars makes my heart sing)) and making a whole movie out of Anakin's back story was a mistake. But honestly, when I first saw them I really enjoyed them and at least George Lucas has admitted the flaws.

For the record I do like The Force Awakens and Rogue One but for whatever reason I didn't enjoy the latter as much as the Prequels and as for TLJ it just seems to get worse the more I watch it. It's So FRUSTRATING!

[Fixer]

What about the Prequels themselves, maybe it's just me but they seem to have been better received as time goes on. Not as good as the Original Trilogy or the Thrawn Trilogy but still, not terrible. I mean just comparing the villains, and again this is just my opinion, but it really says something when Nute Gunray is a more accomplished, more competent and less whiny then all the villains of the Disney Era combined. Also it really Really says something when Jar Jar Binks proves to be more useful and indeed helpful to the heroes then Rose who nearly got the entire Rebellion killed because she liked Finn.

Don't get me wrong, the Prequels are still flawed, the dialogue is poorly written, there is to much CGI, (though that never bothered me personally), the romance is painful, (and this is coming from someone who is a serious romantic ((The Last Naruto Movie and The Legend of Korra Turf Wars makes my heart sing)) and making a whole movie out of Anakin's back story was a mistake. But honestly, when I first saw them I really enjoyed them and at least George Lucas has admitted the flaws.

For the record I do like The Force Awakens and Rogue One but for whatever reason I didn't enjoy the latter as much as the Prequels and as for TLJ it just seems to get worse the more I watch it. It's So FRUSTRATING!

Prequels are an odd one. I think they're in this odd spot of having a fanbase which is willing to overlook its flaws for a few extreme cases where people think everything is secretly brilliant. Reddit Prequel memes does have a lot of fun. The Clone Wars also managed to rescue a lot of the era's storyline and Anakin's character.

Of course there's also this:


I still like Rogue one. The characters were great concepts but not really capitalised on and Jyn Erso's motivation turned a right angle from "not caring" to Rebel patriot, but the third act redeemed the rest.

TFA not so much now. We all knew it's flaws but knowing where the series leads now has retroactively made me lose interest in ever seeing that movie again.

[MyUserName]

What about the Prequels themselves, maybe it's just me but they seem to have been better received as time goes on. Not as good as the Original Trilogy or the Thrawn Trilogy but still, not terrible. I mean just comparing the villains, and again this is just my opinion, but it really says something when Nute Gunray is a more accomplished, more competent and less whiny then all the villains of the Disney Era combined. Also it really Really says something when Jar Jar Binks proves to be more useful and indeed helpful to the heroes then Rose who nearly got the entire Rebellion killed because she liked Finn.

Don't get me wrong, the Prequels are still flawed, the dialogue is poorly written, there is to much CGI, (though that never bothered me personally), the romance is painful, (and this is coming from someone who is a serious romantic ((The Last Naruto Movie and The Legend of Korra Turf Wars makes my heart sing)) and making a whole movie out of Anakin's back story was a mistake. But honestly, when I first saw them I really enjoyed them and at least George Lucas has admitted the flaws.

For the record I do like The Force Awakens and Rogue One but for whatever reason I didn't enjoy the latter as much as the Prequels and as for TLJ it just seems to get worse the more I watch it. It's So FRUSTRATING!

Prequels are an odd one. I think they're in this odd spot of having a fanbase which is willing to overlook its flaws for a few extreme cases where people think everything is secretly brilliant. Reddit Prequel memes does have a lot of fun. The Clone Wars also managed to rescue a lot of the era's storyline and Anakin's character.

Of course there's also this:


I still like Rogue one. The characters were great concepts but not really capitalised on and Jyn Erso's motivation turned a right angle from "not caring" to Rebel patriot, but the third act redeemed the rest.

TFA not so much now. We all knew it's flaws but knowing where the series leads now has retroactively made me lose interest in ever seeing that movie again.

A friend of mine who passed away some years ago often said the prequels were good movies, but told poorly. If you separate many of the concepts of the film away from the execution, many of the ideas are quite good. And when Lucas gets into his groove the prequels shine and even the acting gets good, like the silent scene of anakin looking across the city at Padme while considering whether he should side with palpatine or the Jedi, the entire scene is sold based on the music, acting, and directing and all of it just makes you feel how torn and Conflicted Anakin is without saying a word.

Or maul vs the Jedi near the end of phantom menace. He says nothing, just ignites his light sabre like he is ready to massacre them all, and duel of the fates lights up the scene. Qui gon sends the troops away knowing they'd be a liability, he and Obi-Wan throw aside their cloaks like utter badasses, and an amazing duel begins.


TFA, I still like it, but I get why others don't. I'm a lifelong Bon Jovi fan, and if they advertised Richie was coming back for a full album, only for it to be a double sided greatest hits album with three new tracks, I'd feel betrayed and lied too. But I feel TFA still homaged ANH well, and was directed and acted well. I can't hate it because TFA failed to pick up or thoroughly mishandled the story threads that were obviously set up in it. But I definitely see why some are less than enthused.

[GandALF]

The central theme of Star Wars is internal conflict, people struggling with themselves over their emotions and who they want to be. That's the difference between Luke and Flash Gordon. Flash is absolutely and infallibly certain that he is a heroic space adventurer whereas when adventure comes for Luke, he says "I can take you as far as Anchorhead"

Most of the best old EU stories carried this theme: the Thrawn trilogy has Mara dealing with her past as Emperor's hand and her possible future with Luke, KOTOR has Revan dealing with his past identity, Legacy has Cade dealing with his reluctance to fulfill his role.

TFA fails in that only gives token attention to this theme and it's dropped as quickly as it's brought up, the film is far more interested in being the pop culture idea of Star Wars than carrying the actual themes.

The other Disney films however, do carry this theme:

Rogue One has Jyn overcoming her apathy and Cassian coming to terms with his ruthlessness

TLJ has Rey dealing with her actual parentage and has Luke in similar role to Cade: avoiding his role because he was tempted once in the past (and has to be nagged back into it by a ghost)

Solo has Han trying to be the outlaw while secretly being "the good guy" and struggling over who to trust.

[Winter]

Or maul vs the Jedi near the end of phantom menace. He says nothing, just ignites his light sabre like he is ready to massacre them all, and duel of the fates lights up the scene. Qui gon sends the troops away knowing they'd be a liability, he and Obi-Wan throw aside their cloaks like utter badasses, and an amazing duel begins.

For Me Darth Maul is the perfect example of George Lucas' strength as a writer. He has only a handful of Dialogue but even without any of that the moment you see him you known everything there is to know about him which is only enforced when you see him in action. He's a single minded, unfeeling killing machine who only seeks one thing, to kill the Jedi out of revenge for what they did to the Sith.

It's actually one of my issues with the character in The Clone Wars and other stories that tried to make use of Maul, as he goes from someone who almost never spoke and expressed emotion beyond a sinister smile to someone who Never shuts up and overacts at every possible opportunity. IMO Maul works in only one story, The Phantom Menace and nowhere else and ever attempt to add depth oddly enough just seems to make him weaker as a character.

The stories around Maul in the original EU and The Clone Wars weren't bad but in the years since TPM anytime fans talk about Maul, cosplayed as Maul, do fan art or write fanfiction of him it's almost always in relation to TPM and not anything else. For me that shows that not only are their good things in the Prequels, but things that are able to match what was done in The Clone Wars, The Old Republic series, The Thrawn Trilogy and the Original Trilogy. Not saying that they are secretly brilliant but there is brilliance within them.

[phantom000]

I felt like i needed to see this film because i needed to give the new franchise a chance to win me over. Especially since this seemed like the movie I wanted them to make. I don't mind new films being made but i wanted them to focus less on 'continuing the saga' and more on exploring the setting and making use of it.

So I felt kinda like i owed them this one and I was actually surprised. It did not blow my mind but it did renew my faith in the franchise that they could actually make something that isn't a pointless rehash of the original trilogy.

[cilantro]

The film was okay. Not really a great movie nor a terrible move. I do have some nitpicks about the film but I won't list them here- just yet.

[Winter]

The film was okay. Not really a great movie nor a terrible move. I do have some nitpicks about the film but I won't list them here- just yet.

That does seem to be the general opinion from anyone who has actually seen the film that being that the film was okay. Nothing in it to get worked up unless you're on one of the two extreme sides and even then no one seems to be getting that worked up about this film. I didn't see it myself, I knew about the Solo name thing from a friend who did go to see it and I went online to see what was said exactly and I still consider that to be the dumbest moment in Star Wars history but aside from that my friend said that the movie was just okay. Nothing to get worked up over but nothing to really write home about.

[Admiral X]

I believe the name for Coruscant came from the original write-ups Lucas did when he was writing the first movie. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if there was some inspiration taken from the Thrawn trilogy for the Prequels. I absolutely disagree that Palpatine or anyone else from the Prequels could have been considered a "chess-master" in the same way Thrawn was. Actually at times, he was a bit too good at guessing what the Rebellion (he refused to call them the New Republic) and others would do next.

[SabreMau]

From what I can tell, Lucas's original write-ups named the Imperial capital Alderaan, before a lot of shifting around changed Alderaan to be a different world entirely. Later, when considering the idea of portraying the Imperial capital in the drafts of RotJ, he went with the name Had Abaddon. The name Coruscant wasn't used for it until Zahn wrote it down, and then Lucas went with that for TPM.