The writing was just… so atrocious in the last trilogy. Like, no coherent themes or through lines, characters were bland and poorly executed, dialog was clunky and stilted, pacing was none existent and the story was disjointed with completely un-engaging stakes.
Like, some say “oh well that’s true of all the previous star wars films” and no, it wasn’t. Some of that was true of some elements of the first and second trilogy. But none were all of that at once.
I just have… no faith they’ll do anything interesting. Once is a fluke, twice is bad luck, three times is a pattern. Disney’s modern methodology for producing films is clearly flawed at some fundamental level. The chance that the corporate machinery has realized there is a problem, correctly identified it, and then actually fixed it is close to zero.
Plus Kylo-Ren is not scary or intimidating
He just seems like a force wielding spaz
So there is no threat, or sense of danger…zzzz
Plus Kylo-Ren is not scary or intimidating
Adam Driver is terrible. He should stick to bad italian accents.
I feel like it was more direction?
He def conveyed petulant, angry force wielding spaz…and clearly no one told him not to
His acting in Marriage Story was pretty good, I agree that the directors/writers are mostly to blame for Kylo-Ren
Having Kylo Ren and the First Order be a bunch of larping dweebs was almost fun back when the ‘alt-right’ was just a bunch of larping dweebs. I wish they’d kept the spirit of that interpretation.
I actually watched the second one twice, because I literally forgot I watched it the first time. Like, I saw it on the listing and said to myself “hey, I heard this is lousy, but maybe I can give it a try, I bet its at least fun and entertaining.”
I got fully halfway through the movie before I realized that I had actually watched it before. I usually have a pretty good memory for films, but this thing has so little substances and held so little of my interest it just sorta slips through my brain without leaving anything behind at all.
I know for a fact that I have seen it twice because of that memory of realizing it halfway through the second viewing, but you know what? I still don’t remember the movie at all. I have zero memory of it. I cannot tell you what its about or what happens. Nothing at all. It is like getting surgery. You are awake and then you are awake again a couple hours later. Nothing in between.
So on topic of the original article:
Nobody is watching the Star Wars sequel trilogy — and that’s a problem
Can anybody else who read the article explain to me what “the problem” is? Because I don’t see it.
To me it seems more like a light at the end of the tunnel - that maybe we’ll get out of the nostalgia fad (and probably straight into the next fad).
It is a major problem for Disney. Disney’s main business strategy is to make/buy things to be nostalgic for and then sell that nostalgia at a premium.
Star Wars should have been a slam dunk for Disney. They had experience with the brand and the resources to develop it in ways George Lucas couldn’t. Yet, Disney can’t get the same cultural resonance for Star Wars that Lucas was able to give it and it shows. Hell, people shat on the prequel trilogy for its issues, but the movies were still able to resonate with society enough to get memed and talked about.
I don’t want to poop on your well phrased comment, because I do agree.
But all I can think is “Oh nooooo! Poor Disney! Someone should give the multi billion dollar company a hug!”
As commercial as Star Wars ever was, there was a message of “scrappy scruffy rebels triumphing over the Evil Empire” that was at the heart of its popularity.
IMHO, of course.
They used that to sell endless toys and crass merchandise, and made tons of money.
But along the way, Lucas, and doubly so for Disney, put their heads up their asses and believed it was all the exotic designs, and spaceships, and special effects, and fights, and and and and that was what made Star Wars Special, instead of a simple inspiring message that good can triumph over oppressive evil.
Modern Hollywood doesn’t know how to make a good movie anymore.
It’s not Hollywood just “doesn’t know”, it can’t, period.
When modern Hollywood movies are financed, by banks, there is a risk assessment: The stars, director, script summary, etc are put into an algorithm to minimize the risk that the movie will bomb and that bank loan will be repaid.
The result is that only the movies that are approved for production loans are those that roughly match all the hit movies that came before it.
The result is a system that can only make the same fucking movies, with the same fucking old man stars, directed by the same octegenarian directors, because they’re designed to please the financial algorithms as much as…, you know, audiences.
It’s like a roundabout way to get AI slop: Hey this movie approved by the algorithm made money, so let’s make copies of that, instead of new ideas, or something that’s in tune with the times for which there is no precedent.
Incidentally, this type of algorithm is also used by popular music producers to find hit songs, which is why all modern pop music sounds the same.
Tl;dr we were better off when the Mafia was in charge of financing movies because at least a real human with good taste could decide which movies got financing, instead of an algorithm.
I saw all three in theaters when they came out.
Force Awakens was okay. It had a few problems, but I was willing to over look some of them because it was a new company trying to write something they had never written before. I was more forgiving towards Force Awakens.
Last Jedi ruined the entire trilogy. And honestly, if Rian Johnson actually still gets his trilogy, I will tell everyone I know to NOT see them. That guy deserves no money from Star Wars. Nothing in Last Jedi moved the plot forward, it closed off every possible loose end from 7 and left absolutely nothing for 9 to wrap up. Last Jedi is the reason Rise of Skywalker is so bad. Rian acted like his movie was the end of the series and forgot he was writing the middle movie of a trilogy. Basically half of the movie could be deleted with zero consequence. I almost walked out of the theatre mid-movie like 3 times, but I stayed just to see how bad it really got.
Rise of Skywalker is bad, but I honeslty feel really bad for JJ Abrams. What was he supposed to do in this situation? All the story strings he set up in 7 were cut in 8. At the same time, the writing was so bad that I couldn’t even believe it was real.
If I had to rate them, all three are at the bottom of the barrel. Belong in the bargain bin direct to home video DVDs you find in those thrift shops that have the super thin DVD case. But in order of best to worst: 7, 9, 8.
I am never watching them again. I have not desire or need to.
Feel bad for JJ? This is how all his projects end. The man can NOT do an ending to save his life. It’s why Lost and ep 9 will follow him to the grave
I completely agree with your post…
If I want to watch a single Star Wars movie, it will mostly be A New Hope, but every now and again I will pop on TFA for a popcorn flick.
If I have a spare day where I want to watch Star Wars, it will be R1, 4, 5 & 6
Binge Andor before R1.
It’s treason then.
“Somehow, Palpatine returned”
No shit no one wants to watch this. Marvel just milks IPs for a super long time and anyone thinking otherwise are blind and gullible.
Same reason I dont read the Mr Men books anymore.
Actually no, the Mr Men books arent completely shit.
Largely everything Disney makes now is trash. Everything is written by an executive and it’s always bad.
Onward is a good movie though
Any original projects seem to be left mostly alone, so the creators can actually do their jobs…
All their sequels and IP though… they reek of focus groups and decisions made by Excel spreadsheets ….!
(Now I just remembered how Wish became a husk of its original plan… so disregard all that 🤣)
I can agree with that
Well, don’t worry because now everything will be written by AI!
Solid Freudian slip.
I mean, aint Marvel under Disney wing for a while? Same feathers, same bird.
The difference is marvel said in the beginning that wanted to milk it for multiple storylines. Disney just does it because they breath money, not oxygen. It’s a good pairing.
As soon as it was evident the new movie was just the old movie, but with an even bigger no moon that could blow up 7 planets at once with red lasers instead of green, I was over it. Seeing the fucking laser arches in a space chase in the other movie just killed any desire to watch more.
The prequels were just as hated as the sequels are right now, but then gen z grew up and the nostalgia for those movies suddenly made them okay in the public awareness.
No they weren’t. There were cool bits people loved. Instant classic scenes people liked immediately. I watched Episode 7 but I remember nothing, then never watched any of the later ones. I did like Rogue One
Episode 1: Pod racing is cool.
Darth Maul’s double light saber and a cool duel with cool music.Episode 2:
Chase scene, factory scene, pretty cool.
Full scale war with the clones.
Yoda fighting! Theater blew up on this one!Episode 3:
Battle scene in the opening
Betrayal scenes: “unlimited power!”, Order 66, marching clones, killing the youngling Fighting on lava, and Anakin seething with rage!I did like Rogue One
Surprisingly, a good movie. I’d say, same quality as Mandalorian to me. Just plain good media. Not super epic, or extremely engaging. Just a good movie. But somehow is not popular enough and I remember hardcore fans not liking it either. No idea what exactly is so bad about it compared to The Last Jedi.
Somehow they’re still making these movies.
When the prequels came out, I didn’t love them, but I absolutely had to wear it the fact that we got more Star Wars. At the time we really didn’t expect to get any more out of the franchise. IMO Jar Jar notwithstanding, they were acceptable, but not up to the greatness of the originals. While far from perfect, they did tell a story, They added decent choreography and some reasonably pretty visuals.
The new trilogy tried to go all Kubrick on us.They try to tell a story through visual cues and really, it’s not doing a great job at it. The characters have Backstories, but they’re held from you until you’re getting three-quarters of the way through the movie trying to figure out what the hell is going on while they get around to tying in the original characters. Star Wars requires that exposition.And honestly, another Death Star, another critical flaw, its bigger, its scarier, its all really low effort bullshit.
It was great seeing Luke and Han again, I really wanted to like Rey, They just utterly failed to develop her character, and then the crak with Snoke. You just end up coming out of the movie, feeling like you didn’t understand half of what the new story is, and being utterly bored with the other half and all the horrible things happening to the protagonist that you don’t really care that much about.
They could’ve developed the different jedi codexes, but they just let them burn!
There’s so much canon and a million threads they could have picked up and pulled.
They could have taken a list of Star Wars media (books, video games, etc), sorted by highest rated of all time, and compiled a list of ideas that would have printed a legendary amount of money.
How they approached it was so foolish.
Every time I consider watching them I remember how they butchered logic and character development. Or plotlines that could be removed with no impact whatsoever.
The only thing I can say is that the dialogs are at least not as shallow as in the prequel trilogy.
I trid to re-watch those a few weeks ago and… No. I couldn’t stand the moments they opened their mouths to speak their lines, sorry to say.
The first one of the new set was ok. Slightly darker overtones.
Backing up a bit - the second trilogy had an all-star cast, yet a wooden log had more writing skill, acting ability, and charisma than the people on the screen. It was like people in a classroom being told to take turns reading out loud from the assigned book. The lack of acting and directorial skill was made up with by the abuse and overuse of CGI. Awful. I have never watched the second set since release. Lump the Boba Fett series in with this set, it was so wooden and poorly written they had to bring in the Mandalorian to rescue it.
Han Solo? Throwaway movie. Really didn’t do the character justice. Turned him into an Errol Flynn “Robin Hood”. I think everyone’s forgotten about it even existing.
The new set? Love the practical effects. Way less CGI. Awesome. But now the acting was ridiculous and over the top as were the characters. I know she gets some hate, but I think Ridley did a decent job of it with what she was given. The rest? Meh. Just written crazy with shameless bad writing, merch placement, and trite lines.
We’ll have to see about the new Mando movie.
Best Star Wars? ANH, ESB, R1, Andor. Some of the Mandalorian series. Probably some of the animated ones, but I haven’t watched them.
Eh, turned into more of a critique than I wanted, but I guess I’ll leave it.
What do you think of the original trilogy?
Kinda covered that, but ANH (which wasn’t ANH on release…) gets full marks for being first even if it is kinda silly at times. ESB is great. Darker, more serious, the cast and writers hit their stride. ROTJ is pretty much of the same vein as TLJ or TROS. A rehash or retread of already done themes with fluffy happy critters perfect for toy sales. Not great, but not awful. I liked it as a way to say goodbye to characters I never thought I’d see again. Man, was I wrong.
Ok, sorry, I’m not much of a star wars fan and I didn’t recognize the abbrevations.
Best Star Wars?
The Clone Wars. Hands down.
Bad Batch
The Bad Batch episodes were great. The Bad Batch show was weak IMO.
I remember sitting in the theater for Force Awakens. I remember the last preview finished, and I had a sense of excitement, because I didn’t know what would happen. It wasn’t based on a book or comic, it could be anything.
Then I watched A New Hope, but worse.
I understand it’s scifi, but the stupid planet laser is one of the dumbest things Ive ever seen. Was the beam faster than light? Did it go through hyperspace? How’d they focus the laser at stellar distances? Is it a super weapon because it can destroy a couple planets or because it can shoot a mega laser beam through hyperspace or snuff out a star? Idiots.
It’s fantasy, no star war film ever stood up to scientific scrutiny
That, and the bombers in space in The Last Jedi.
No cause those were cool
I have no problem with the bombers.
From a functional design it works. There’s artificial gravity inside the bomb bay and once they fall out of the floor they will continue in space on their inertia.
From a style point of view it works. Space battles in Star Wars was always a love letter to world war 2 dog fights. They are planes in space, not space ships. Always have been.
What about the lasers with bullet drop in the same movie?
I’m not familiar with that.
Important to recognise they don’t shoot lasers in Star Wars. Their energy bolts have mass.
Honest question then - would the relatively small rebel (resistance?) ships have enough mass to generate a gravitational field that would have affected those energy bolts? Because they’re in the vacuum of space IIRC.
The love letter to dogfights thing doesn’t excuse complete stupidity. I’m not expecting Babylon 5 level of good space battles, but at the very least they could have treated it as a “escort the torpedo boats” fight and not a “bombing ground targets but in spaaaaaace”. Some one should have taken one look at the script/plan for that scene and said, “No, that’s stupid.”
Yeah, because they suck.
As did the prequel trilogy.
And if we’re being honest, so did Return of the Jedi.
No Star Wars media can live up to the one that lives in our heads.
Being bland is worse than being bad.
I can watch comically bad sci fi. But… I can’t remember a thing about the last two movies of the trilogy. And I remember a whole lot of “meh” sci fi.
I can watch comically bad sci fi
Ordinarily I agree but dear god stay away from Rebel Moon, worst shit ever and not in a remotely fun way
I remember that one of them, I think the second one, is called The Scargiver. I couldn’t tell you who had a scar or who gave it. Those movies wish they were trash.
My favorite-least-favorite part is that in the first one, they give the fascist (who is a Hellsing-tier Nazi [love Hellsing tho], he’s not a fascist with an actual ideology, he’s just eviiiiil because he’s so eviiiiil) a shillelagh. Why? Who the fuck knows. And then in the end of the movie (no spoiler warnings, I am sparing you) he gets stabbed with it. He gets stabbed with a relatively blunt stick and that’s how he dies.
It’s just so bad. I’m in a similar boat as you, I’ll watch scifi even if it’s garbage. I watched all of Dark Matter, which is a scifi series that feels like Star Trek fanfiction written by an edgy 13-year-old goth kid (I am qualified to say that as a former edgy 13 y/o goth kid). It was miles more enjoyable than Rebel Moon. Even Morbius got me to laugh often, Rebel Moon just made me want to self immolate.
