Star Wars Episode IX

[broodblik]

Understand, none of this is to suggest that in acknowledging or rejecting elements of its predecessor The Last Jedi is passing judgement on The Force Awakens so much as that Rian Johnson was running with the ball he'd been passed.  TLJ still works if you want it to.

I want it to work for me but TLJ feels like a movie with great action scenes, grand scenario and cool CGI with lazy writing (if I can quote Deadpool here). As I said previously I do not mind some humour in my movie but your main general becomes the comic relieve, really ?

[Tiplodocus]

Watched Last Jedi again tonight and really enjoyedcit again. My favourite laugh is still when the unreconstructed Poe says "So then we blow it up?".

Top marks to supporting cast. Tordels already mentioned Arkady (especially his look just at his very end) but there are a whole slew of unnamed Resistance guys and gals who sketch likeable characters from very little in the way of lines.

[Tiplodocus]

Plus the Porg get better on every viewing.

[TordelBack]

The bit that establishes the tone for me, straight out of Billie Lourde's rather fine "Oh no", is still Ade Edmonson's gleeful "We've caught them in the middle of their evacuation".  It's magnificently brazen, 100% Eddie Hitler, reassures that Johnson knows exactly what he's doing, and is streets ahead of the forced humour and fart jokes of the prequels: I still shudder when I think of McGregor's inexplicable fake laughter in the opening lift scene in AotC.  Anyway, it ensures I start the movie each time with a massive grin on my face, and it stays there.

[James Stacey]

That was Ade Edmondson ? Bloody hell.. totally missed that.

[SIP]

You'll get no argument from me on the awful forced-humour of the prequels, they are indeed shudder inducing.

I'm not sure if an "evacuation" joke followed by a bizarre telephone call "your momma" joke to our comedy pantomime general offered me any reassurance that Johnson knew exactly what he was doing, it only showed that he was as clueless on the tone of humour as George was on the prequels, broadly aiming it at the same level.

[IndigoPrime]

Or in the Edmonson case that he was a fan of his previous work, and realised a fun way of sneaking in a suitably silly joke that people who realised who the actor was would be really happy with.

[SIP]

Or in the Edmonson case that he was a fan of his previous work, and realised a fun way of sneaking in a suitably silly joke that people who realised who the actor was would be really happy with.

It's not exactly subtle though is it? How are either of those jokes less childish or irritating to a general audience than a fart joke. Just as cringeworthy from my seat.

And sadly Star wars has become cameo appearance territory now.

I'm officially depressed with all things star wars post 1983. It's mostly a sliding scale from average to poor.  I'm going back into my corner now to play with Kenner star wars figures and remember when this stuff used to have some heart.

I clearly need to stop "contributing" to these threads.....for everyone's sake.

[TordelBack]

Sorry SIP, genuinely don't mean to cause you daily distress with my Sequel commenting addiction.

I don't see Ade as a gratuitous cameo, he's great as Hux's No. 2 (hur-hur-hur), a memorable little character and - as noted - largely unrecognised.  Other minor cameos in the sequels are completely unrecognisable (Daniel Craig and Simon Pegg in TFA), or blink-and-you'll-miss-it backgrounders (Lilly Cole, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish in TLJ).  I can't begrudge appearances SW family members like Gareth Edwards and Chelsea Hamill, that's a tradition that goes back to Ralph McQuarrie and Richard Marquand, and latterly the Lucases.  And Warwick Davis gets an auto-pass.

OTH Joseph Gordon-Levitt's annoying Neighbourhood Watch Abednedo on Canto Bight sticks out like a sore thumb, terrible choice of performance.  I miss the days when almost all the aliens (and droids) in SW had a made-up language, instead of funny accents.

[SIP]

Sorry SIP, genuinely don't mean to cause you daily distress with my Sequel commenting addiction.

Oh, don't worry TB, you aren't causing me daily distress, that is all entirely self-inflicted!

It is a subject that I'm very passionate about, and I think that whenever I'm debating Star Wars I'm perhaps too forward in my point of view. I'm concerned that I'm coming across badly and losing my points in my endless rambles.

I am genuinely happy that Star Wars is continuing to bring joy to people (it's my older brothers obsession), that is a positive thing.

I often read these debates and wonder if I'm missing something.......I am a person always happy to be persuaded by a solid argument, or at the least be enlightened by others perspectives.

I'm failing to see the light on the majority of the new Star Wars output, even worse than that, I'm now feeling increasingly jaded towards the prequels too. That appears to be a result of the new trilogy, along with Rogue One and Rebels, chipping away at my ability to overlook the glaring issues with those films.

Star wars appears to have lost all of its joy, though Solo gave me some welcome respite from that. I feel irritated and fed up with it most of the time now and spend more time in arguments about it than is healthy for a 45 year old man!

I've just heard the Favreau series is to be set on Mandalore. I should be excited.....I would have been 5 years ago. My immediate thought was negative.

On the face of it, it would appear that these films just aren't intended for the middle-aged original Star Wars fans, so I think it's probably advisable for me to stop passing comment on something that just clearly isn't for me, and let those who love them carry on  having a good time.

[TordelBack]

I've just heard the Favreau series is to be set on Mandalore. I should be excited.....I would have been 5 years ago. My immediate thought was negative.

Heh, mine too. I find everything about Mandalore boring, with the exceptions of Obi-Wan's relationship with Satine and the KotR game (and comic).  Still, I wonder if this isn't just lazy scribblers equating Favreau's Pre Vizla character with his new project. 

Incidentally, Favreau's Rio Durant in Solo is another character who would have benefited from a voice performance that offered something more alien than Brookyln.  He's a great character, gone too soon*, but he always seemed one line away from reminiscing about the lox and bagels at Gottlieb's. 


*You can add Val to that statement - it's unfortunate that the spin-off movies seem to have made a practice of sketching out interesting new characters shortly before killing them.  In the case of Solo, [spoiler]Qi'Ra, Enfys Nest and maybe Moloch[/spoiler] (but he's a bit ho-hum) are the only survivors for future adventures.  In Rogue One, no-one at all. Think of the lost potential for further adventures of Rio, Chirrut and Baze, General Merrick (Blue Leader)... Not a great way to broaden the franchise.

[SIP]

I've just heard the Favreau series is to be set on Mandalore. I should be excited.....I would have been 5 years ago. My immediate thought was negative.

Heh, mine too. I find everything about Mandalore boring, with the exceptions of Obi-Wan's relationship with Satine and the KotR game (and comic).  Still, I wonder if this isn't just lazy scribblers equating Favreau's Pre Vizla character with his new project. 

Incidentally, Favreau's Rio Durant in Solo is another character who would have benefited from a voice performance that offered something more alien than Brookyln.  He's a great character, gone too soon, but he always seemed one line away from reminiscing about the lox and bagels at Gottlieb's.

Kotor Mandalore was absolutely the way to go with this......that would have generated a lot of excitement and would provide some much needed distance from the skywalker era. I believe it's set 3 years after Return of the Jedi though.

I think Favreau will do a good job......so my fingers are crossed.

[Frank]

Star Wars IX^* guaranteed to win Academy Award: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-45115581


^* ... and every subsequent Star Wars movie, unless Chris Nolan has a film out that year

[sheridan]

'Astronomy' might have been a better term here, but that's not quite right either as that's more a study of the cosmos rather than the location of planets in relation to each other... although that's part of it.

Planetology?

[radiator]

The humour was probably the single weakest element of TLJ for me. I like humour in an action adventure film, but I also think it's important to know when it's appropriate and when to ease off on it. (I think the Marvel movies are generally pretty good at this). But there's no consistency to the approach and tone of the humour in TLJ - it seems like they're just throwing everything at the wall in a slightly sweaty, desperate way to endear the film to the audience. The steam iron bit was downright bizarre - on a level with Chewie's Tarzan impression in Jedi as just seeming really out of place and distracting. A very odd choice.