Star Wars Episode IX

[JOE SOAP]

Writers were hired and fired and at the end the director became one of the co-writers (and the movies suffer because of this).

The directors hired for the trilogy (Abrams, Trevorrow) were co-writers from the very beginning — apart from Johnson, who was sole writer.

[Jim_Campbell]

It still feels to me the movies were made by people who do not know Star Wars at all.

The Last Jedi basically lost me right at the start with the 'can you hold' joke. It wasn't a bad joke, TBH, but what it said to me was: "The people writing and directing this movie have no interest in even pretending that this is a story set a long time ago in a galaxy far away". Right there, writ large on the screen.

For me, that meant I spent a couple of hours knowing I was watching someone's conscious 'take' on Star Wars rather than an actual Star Wars movie.

[broodblik]

I watched Episode IX and it was for me by far the best of the trilogy. I enjoyed it and it was a fun ride.X

[TordelBack]

Just out. Man that was some overblown illogical nonsense.

But I loved it.  It was go big or go home time for the franchise, and it did both. Went in completely unspoiled, haven't seen so much as an emoticon of response, and was glad of it.

Made me feel the feels and no mistake.

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

For the first time EVER, my youngest turned to me when it had finished and asked when we could go back and see it again. His brother agreed. Theyve never done this, as for years now one visit to the cinema then possibly dvd has been the norm.
To say they loved it is an understatement, and the same is true for me. By far my favourite modern Star Wars movie- just edging out Solo.
A serious downer today that the saga is over, and counting the days til we go back.

SBT

[TordelBack]

Addendum: as a follow-on to an earlier post, my lad decided to come along today, entirely off his own bat, he'll be seeing it for a second time tomorrow with his mates Further feels were felt.

My initial non-spoilery reaction is that I owe Abrams an apology. This a conclusion that really does pick up the dangling threads of the first one, and even some bits of the second, and ties them up neatly, even allowing one to believe (momentarily) that there was a plan after all.  To paraphrase a wise scoundrel, I don't mean to suggest that I like all the decisions, I don't agree with many of them, but but I can accept them. Cos it was fun, and it was spectacular, and despite severe cameoitis it gave the new characters the stage.

And if YuckTube thought TLJ broke the 'rules' of SW space combat, they'd best stay at home!

[radiator]

A lot of these movies you mentioned got equals just because the original made a ton of money. They never had any future plans when the first movie was made. I still think the problem with the current trilogy is that their was no clear outline what they want to achieve. Writers were hired and fired and at the end the director became one of the co-writers (and the movies suffer because of this). The worst decision was to try and remake the original trilogy and by stage 2 it looked like Johnson want to be controversial by turning everything on its head. It still feels to me the movies were made by people who do not know Star Wars at all.

Yeah, I think someone somewhere along the line should have had at least one eye on the overall direction of the trilogy, maybe have a few of the broad strokes of the plot mapped out at least.

Empire is probably THE defining middle chapter in modern pop culture. Its just perfect. It expands the world of the original and adds a darker, more adult tone. It deepens its characters on an emotional level and puts all of them through the ringer, before ending on an amazing cliffhanger and a moment of resolve and hope.

TLJ has a swing at all of this, but forgets to set up the next film, and feels like a season finale of a TV show more than a bridging chapter in a trilogy. It just sort of ends with the status quo reset to how things were back in the very first movie of the series. Leia leading a Rebellion, a Darth Vader type chasing her down. A young Jedi in training. It kinda makes you wonder what the point of it all is, or where you even go from there.

[TordelBack]

That specific criticism only makes sense if you assume there *wasn't* a plan for the next film, or that if there wasn't one LFL weren't capable of coming up with one that developed the situation. For my money as a punter, having no idea of where the story would go was exciting.

[broodblik]

After watching ROS it almost felt that you can skip TLJ and just start at TFA.

[Colin YNWA]

Well watched it this afternoon and most important thing is the kids loved it. Not their best, but they loved it. Personally think thing given that it was always going to do what it was going to do to try to bring the story back on track* after the wonderful Last Jedi it wasn't as bad as I was dreading. In fact I enjoyed vaste swathes of it. The first hour, hour and half were immense fun. Then it started to buckle in the weight of quite how much it was trying to pack in and what it was trying to achieve and things began to lose space to breathe. Then it got a little too Force Awakens making the same mistakes. I felt it was a cowardly movie during the second third. The last bit was over the top nonsense but to be fair just about held together and pretty much made the landing... just.

It will be very interesting to see how this one survivies re-watch as I think more problems will wash out as the spectacle of it all loses some of its intitial impact. But for now I'll settle for the fact it was on the whole a decent, always entertaining action romp that while misguided did do some things very very well and made its mistakes about as well as it could have hoped to.

*In the thoughts and minds of many - though in my head that's exactly what Last Jedi did for me. Made Star Wars what it should be again, exciting, original in a comfortable way and fresh.

[Tiplodocus]

Tiny Tips reckons he's hating it more as time passes; he came out feeling ambivalent on Thursday.

The big thing for me is the lack of a stand out "iconic" set piece... the action was functional at best but there was no "fuck it, here's three minutes of pure whizz bang".

Even the prequels managed that.

[JOE SOAP]

Feck the fandom menace begrudgers.

It's a greatest hits, an easter-egg hunt, a 'sum of all' Star Wars tropes; and even though it takes careless, mad short-cuts into narrative ditches, it manages to pay-off in ways I didn't think it would: emotionally, thematically and – dare I say – as an ending.

Recklessy entertaining, entertainingly reckless, I don't care.

It's Star Wars and it worked for me.

[TordelBack]

The big thing for me is the lack of a stand out "iconic" set piece... the action was functional at best but there was no "fuck it, here's three minutes of pure whizz bang".

I think that's a good observation, there was little time for any one thing to breath in terms of a individual sequence. I can pick two: I thought the final space battle was jaw-dropping,  despite being entirely silly in terms of scale; and I thought a certain character's last act was beautifully handled. Perhaps this is the sort of thing that will sort itself out in the noggin on re-watches, when the pace is less of an issue.

As it stands, I'm very glad they went nuts and stuffed the film to bursting. I liked that they managed to do a lot of new things in amongst all the greatest hits,  and despite scepticism enjoyed the additional characters.  It's not necessarily what I wanted to see, in that it drifted away from themes I was invested in, but it was warm and exciting and satisfying as a conclusion and I enjoyed it a great deal.

My one real regret is that [spoiler]Poe[/spoiler] turned out to be straight after all - now there was a missed opportunity.

What's next?

[Colin YNWA]

What's next?

A break so we can all catch breathe and these things can become significent again.

[shaolin_monkey]

What's next?

Watch the original three as a reminder of what well crafted Star Wars films look like.

It was Return of the Jedi for us last night, a wonderful Xmas film, a superbly choreographed and exciting last third, and a prime example of how to complete a film franchise.