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Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

Started by TordelBack, 23 January, 2017, 04:29:12 PM

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TordelBack

#720
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 05 January, 2018, 02:06:58 PM...this place is for the most part a little oasis in a sea of sewerage.

You missed your vocation - a glittering new career in writing package holiday brochures beckons!

I've almost totally given up on social media myself, for the same reason, except for following a mix of colleagues, creatives and scientists on Twitter, and, well, here.  One glance at the comments on popular Irish news sites and I feel like I've slipped into a nightmare.  Is this really what goes on in the heads of the people on the bus, in the supermarket queue, working across the desk from me?  Is that what the girl over there is typing into her phone right now? No wonder Professor X's hair fell out.

But at one level I can almost understand the kind of grim passion for propagating your childishly selfish narrow model of the real world that seems to be represented across social media - it's bringing all possible guns to bear on a popular science fantasy franchise that I just can't grasp! I mean 'Mary Sue Rey' was one thing, at least couched in the familiar (misused) misogynistic language of fandom, but 'pointless Asian b*tch', in casual usage?  Enough.


Tjm86

Quote from: TordelBack on 05 January, 2018, 03:31:25 PM

I've almost totally given up on social media myself, for the same reason, except for following a mix of colleagues, creatives and scientists on Twitter, and, well, here. 

Could I possibly recommend a one-off venture into the TwitterSphere for a quick butchers at Nigel Farage's #askBarnier.  It will restore your faith, or at the very least give you a good chuckle.  (Lost to a dolphin!!!!!)

Professor Bear

I've come to the - possibly paranoid - conclusion that the vast majority of the pigshit-thick commentary on social media is either bot-produced, or indistinguishable from bot-produced content to the point I may as well just block it anyway, as I'm fucked if they're driving me off even as dreadful and morally compromised a platform as Twitter.

radiator

QuoteAll the modern rhetorical suspects are there: creating narratives by repeatedly using buzzwords (the Last Jedi was a 'fiasco', a 'flop'

Yep - because I sought out a few mixed reviews of TLJ, I keep getting youtube videos popping up in my feed called things like 'Mark Hamill - "I HATE The Last Jedi" that deliberately misrepresent and distort Hamill's sensitive and very well-reasoned comments about his ambivalence to the portrayal of Luke.

As for social media, I think Twitter is the worst offender. I pretty much quit using it entirely after the 2016 election. It's such an echo chamber of smart-arsery, outrage and despair, it's just not good for anyone's mental health. I'm mainly on Instagram these days, with imo is a very pleasant - even relaxing - place to be (depending on who you follow, obvs).

TordelBack

Quote from: Tjm86 on 05 January, 2018, 04:31:24 PM
Could I possibly recommend a one-off venture into the TwitterSphere for a quick butchers at Nigel Farage's #askBarnier.  It will restore your faith, or at the very least give you a good chuckle.  (Lost to a dolphin!!!!!)

Hah, cheers Tjm, that was a good laugh!

To further cheer myself up I've just booked a third visit to TLJ for tomorrow morning... IMAX 2D this time, have to try all the flavours.  Ain't had the SW hunger this bad since TPM.

Dandontdare

May need to expand this now to include SW, but I've been saying for a while that the two scariest internet communities to get on the wrong side of are Whovians and Mumsnet

Pete Wells

Yeah, I've just been reading some dickheads comments about modern Star Wars being too political! I think he missed Lucas' point entirely.

Tjm86

Quote from: Dandontdare on 05 January, 2018, 06:28:11 PM
May need to expand this now to include SW, but I've been saying for a while that the two scariest internet communities to get on the wrong side of are Whovians and Mumsnet

OOOOh, Mumsnet?  No, just .... no.  Imagine the scariest, b********* girls in school, all grown up, then cross them with a mountain lioness protecting her cubs.  You'd be safer strapping yourself to an ICBM and shouting 'mines bigger than Donald's!'

sheridan

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 05 January, 2018, 02:06:58 PM
Quote from: TordelBack on 05 January, 2018, 01:31:06 PMIs this whole online world just a perpetual tyre-fire now?
Mostly, yes, which is why one of my resolutions this year has been to dial back on a lot of social network and internet activity. My mental health was starting to suffer with the ongoing slew of toxic shit. It's too much. Fortunately, this place is for the most part a little oasis in a sea of sewerage.


I've not been on here too much lately but it is about the only online forum I go to which I interact with (I follow a few RPG forums, but that's more to gain ideas and read than to actually participate).

sheridan

Quote from: radiator on 05 January, 2018, 02:27:12 AM
Quoteou're right that I'm sure brilliant story tellers like George RR Martin still change their minds about the direction of a character or event, even 7 books in or whatever it is now

It's fascinating to read Martin's original outline of the plot of what became 'A Song of Ice and Fire' (when it was being pitched as an 'epic trilogy', and see just how much it took on a life of it's own once he began writing it.


For many years Lucas claimed he had an end in mind and worked his way to the beginning (and Pat Mills claimed he was doing the same with Nemesis).  We took it on faith that he was telling the truth there, though the experience of the prequel trilogy, where we absolutely knew what the end point was (the holy trilogy) and how badly Lucas handled plot, pacing and character development to get to that point casts some doubt on the original claim (leaving aside at what point he decided to make half the main characters part of the same family).


One writer I absolutely do believe is capable of consistently planning out long form series and executing them correctly is Alan Moore.  From early works like Marvelman, his tooth stuff (elements introduced seemingly as background flavour in Book One coming to the fore in Books Two and Three) to his later work, you always get the impression he has a plan.


All of which is contrasted with the making-it-up-as-they-go-along that the latest 'trilogy' is using.  Though is it really a trilogy if there's no plan, or are they just three otherwise unrelated films?

radiator

George RR Martin has a good analogy:

Quote"I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect."

At the end of the day, though, I don't think this new SW trilogy is any more or less off the cuff than the original trilogy. I just think the original trilogy is a lot better written.

GrudgeJohnDeed

George RR Martin was still way ahead of the reader though in constructing his narrative, he's not laying track just out of sight with regards to almost everything, like this current Star Wars trilogy. I binged on George RR Martin interviews a few years ago and he definitely talked about having plans in place, however fluid a writer he is.

You might be right about the original Star Wars trilogy though, I've no idea how off the cuff they were. If they were written entirely exactly the same way as this current trilogy, one movie at a time with no foresight, they were indeed just better written! Having one guy at the centre of writing the story for all 3 films helps guarantee *some* consistency and oversight too, even if they were just flying by the seat of their pants.

Quote from: sheridan on 06 January, 2018, 12:07:38 AM
One writer I absolutely do believe is capable of consistently planning out long form series and executing them correctly is Alan Moore.  From early works like Marvelman, his tooth stuff (elements introduced seemingly as background flavour in Book One coming to the fore in Books Two and Three) to his later work, you always get the impression he has a plan.

I remember that Halo Jones was supposed to be 9 books. You'd think that if someone announced 9 books they're not averse to a plan! :) Although, a thought - isn't Halo Jones a decade older in each released book, teens, 20s, 30s? If you decided each book was going to be set in a different decade of her life, you could arrive at the 9 number without much of a plan at all. Maybe that's the real reason he's never come back to it, the last 2 or 3 books set in a retirement home would be a chore :D

Big_Dave

"You might be right about the original Star Wars trilogy though
If they were written entirely exactly the same way as this current trilogy, one movie at a time with no foresight, they were indeed just better written!"


so its the writing you dont like
not being written in advance isnt why you dont like them

lucas made ot up as he went
kasdan is the lucas of new films

JOE SOAP

#733
Quote from: GrudgeJohnDeed on 06 January, 2018, 01:31:20 PMI remember that Halo Jones was supposed to be 9 books. You'd think that if someone announced 9 books they're not averse to a plan! :) Although, a thought - isn't Halo Jones a decade older in each released book, teens, 20s, 30s? If you decided each book was going to be set in a different decade of her life, you could arrive at the 9 number without much of a plan at all. Maybe that's the real reason he's never come back to it, the last 2 or 3 books set in a retirement home would be a chore :D

According to Neil Gaiman it was worked out to a certain point and he at least had an ending:

It would have ended up with Halo Jones upon some planet that is right at the absolute edge of the universe where, beyond that, beyond some sort of spectacular lightshow, there is no space, no time, and it would have ended up with Halo Jones – all the rest of the people on this planetoid because, actually, time is not passing; you could stay there forever, potentially – and what would have happened is that Halo Jones, after spending some time with the rest of the immortals, would have tottered across the landing field, got into her spacecraft, and flown into the psychedelic lightshow, to finally get out. And that would have been the ending.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/boy-from-the-boroughs/3/

Apart from just the difficult process of writing there are varying degrees of pressures that are different between comics, novels and films. Pumping out a $200 million film every 2 years because the shareholders want their return is not the same as George RR Martin spending almost a decade on one book pleasing himself.

I'm not convinced there was zero plan or co-ordination in the Star Wars Sequels and yes it'd be easier to have a full outline beforehand but it doesn't mean it would be necessarily better. Personally, I believe going into the films Lucas had as much planned for the Prequels as he did the Originals but the execution and a change in the method of their making resulted in quite different outcomes.

From reports and statements by Lucasfilm, Carrie Fisher's death put the Sequels' conclusion into a tail-spin as both 8 + 9 were being written quite close together, ahead of time. You can at least imagine the themes and dynamics they were going for with concentrating on female characters and the relationship between Leia and Ben Solo being a pay-off to the Force Awakens, and to the themes of nurturing a wider, galaxy-spanning Rebellion fostered in The Last Jedi. A 'Force' Majeure –pun intended– demanded a drastic, from scratch, re-write of 9.


TordelBack

#734
Three viewings under the belt now, and my main feeling as the credits rolled was 'Again! Again!'. I even found myself warming to Holdo this time around, picking up on the inversion of [spoiler]Luke and Leia's conversation, as well as really grokking the visual device of the burning curtains in Snoke's throne room. 
[/spoiler]
For those playing irrelevant-character bingo, I am sorry to confirm that Poe's [spoiler]decision to take out the 'fleet-killer' Dreadnought is what saves the Resistance: the wonderful Captain '5 bloody minutes ago' Kannady is confidently targeting the Raddus with his auto-cannons when his ship is destroyed - had it survived, it could presumably have taken out the Raddus at any time, and then the Crait base.[/spoiler]

TLJ is now tied with TPM in my No. 4 spot, TPM mainly holding its ground due to the sheer amount of beautiful designs, and maybe Qui-Gon. On all other counts TLJ is the best thing since RotJ, with the possible exception of the Tartakovsky series.

I think it's a work of unexpected and unlooked-for genius, that so far has done nothing but reward repeated scrutiny and thought.