Slashdot Mirror
Star Wars: The Last Jedi Has Critics In Raptures (bbc.com)
gollum123 shares a report from BBC: "Rousing." "Thrilling." "Addictively bold." Just a few of the superlatives the critics are using to describe the latest film in the Star Wars saga. The Last Jedi, writes the Telegraph, is "enormous fun" and "will leave fans beaming with surprise." The Guardian calls it "an explosive sugar rush of spectacle" possessing "a tidal wave of energy and emotion." Variety, though, swims against the tide, describing it as "the longest and least essential chapter in the series." Rian Johnson's film, says Peter Debruge, is "ultimately a disappointment" that "gives in to the same winking self-parody that is poisoning other franchises of late." Writing in The Verge, Tasha Robinson tends to agree: "Audiences will likely come away from The Last Jedi with a lot of complaints and questions." Driver's Kylo Ren is singled out for praise by USA Today, who describe the character as "blockbuster cinema's most magnetic and unpredictable antagonist since Heath Ledger's Dark Knight Joker." Have you seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi? If so, how do you think it stacks up against the others in the saga?
This is just more garbage from Disney designed to sell franchise crap.
I get the distinct feeling they're not actually making these movies for the sake of making movies anymore. It's entirely and utterly driven by profit, and very little else. You can tell the original Star Wars movies were made by a bunch of people who had no idea what they were doing, but it worked out for them in the end. SW8 feels like a movie that was designed by a committee and approved by Disney to have the maximum impact on merchandising sales and franchise licensing after the fact. It's basically just a gigantic commercial for their beloved IP.
I have to partially disagree: The Empire Strikes Back was a worthy sequel.
--
The world is divided in two categories:
those with a loaded gun and those who dig. You dig.
Looks like your parser failed. I said "Matrix" was a one-off. There weren't any sequels.
I quite enjoyed watching the movie, but left with a feeling that I had to see it at least another three times to fully comprehend it. It has some interesting plot twists and some iconic scenes. It answers some questions, while are left unanswered. At least the movie is good, because it does not have one main character and that we see the struggles of several characters and going through some development to add to the story. It also leads to some dramatic choices being made. In a sense this may make the movie look quite chaotic, but in a sense it might be most emotional dramatic movie of all the movies that have been made so far. Maybe even the most convincing if you give it time to sink in.
Jesus, do we really have to have this conversation here, where cynicism reigns? Where the default tone is "I'm so much cooler and more intelligent than everyone else"? Where most of the comments are going to be by people who haven't seen it (but they don't need to, because they're so much more intelligent and already can judge based on their massive predictive brain)? Cultural debate is not a ./ strong point.
For my part, I loved it. I might even say it's the best Star Wars film... though that might come down a bit on rewatching... It's funny, serious, genuinely moving when it needs to be, and says very much different things than the other films have. After the feature-length trailer that was The Force Awakens (which I still liked, but was a bit frustrating), we're going new places now.
I'm not sure you'll find a lot of people agreeing that the third was the best. I will say though after having rewatched it a few times on DVD in the past few years, my initial reactions to seeing it during it's theatrical release might have been a little harsh. It has some redeeming points, but I still have a problem with just discarding two central characters developed in Aliens.
There is an old joke about how the Matrix sequels are so bad, true fans refuse to recognize that they exist. If we all believe hard enough, maybe they'll go away. You can safely assume that people talking about the Matrix having no sequels are a part of the effort to forget. If they aren't why would you be so cruel as to inflict the sequels on the blissfully ignorant? https://xkcd.com/566/
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
This is just more garbage from Disney designed to sell franchise crap.
Star Wars was about selling "franchise crap" from day one. I'm old enough to have seen the first Star Wars movies in a theater in 1977. Star Wars was all about moving merchandise right out of the gate. Star Wars action figures and toys were HUGE when I was younger. Disney is just better at it than Lucasfilm was on its own. Anyone who thought Disney wasn't in this to make a buck is delusional. You just hope that the stories are entertaining along the way as well.
I get the distinct feeling they're not actually making these movies for the sake of making movies anymore. It's entirely and utterly driven by profit, and very little else.
It's adorable that you ever thought that the movie industry wasn't all about making money. Yes sometimes some good art got made along the way. But the movie industry has been ruthlessly profit driven as long as there has been a movie industry. There is a reason hollywood accounting is a thing.
SW8 feels like a movie that was designed by a committee and approved by Disney to have the maximum impact on merchandising sales and franchise licensing after the fact. It's basically just a gigantic commercial for their beloved IP.
Are you familiar with any Disney products? That has been their MO since Snow White was released back in 1937. This should not be astonishing to you.
And remember that SW1-3 (the prequels) were clearly NOT designed by committee and the shitty results prove it. The only reason the original trilogy was good was because there were smart people who could limit the amount of damage George Lucas could do to the material.
Force Awakens is a feminist movie because Rey was the main character? I think you doth protest too much. I've seen it 3 or 4 times and saw nothing of the sort. My only disappointment was that it was basically a reboot of A New Hope but I thought they did it well.
I never saw Rogue One - so I won't comment.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Several of my friends have seen the movie.
The youngest of them - in his 20s - thought the story was lame and was put off by the "galactic scheming." He felt like the movie was really stretching to find motivations for the actions of the characters. Kylo Ren is the one he complained about the most, he said nothing he did made sense.
The oldest of them - in his 40s - enjoyed the new ships, redesign of older ones, and overall special effects. He said the depictions of space battles were well done, but the camera moved a little too fast for his taste. He didn't have much to say about the plot, other than to recount some of the facts that happened.
Not having seen the film, I can't comment on why there may be a different appeal for different generations. The thing that bothers me about the movie is the distribution deal Disney worked out with theaters. To show the film, they had to agree to keep it on screens for at least 4 weeks.
I remember going to see The Force Awakens on a Friday night a few weeks after it was released. The theater was empty. An usher walked through the theater a couple times just to make sure we were being behaved. That memory stands out more than the film.
I don't know about you, but watching a movie in an empty theater feels creepy.
This is one of those things that everyone knew as the walked out of the cinema. And you can say it now, but not a single review said it. Well I remember one alluding to it - they said something like "reviews have mostly been positive but a few people have complained the plot has too many similarities to A New Hope".
Then again if you were Disney and you'd just spent a fortune on the rights to Star Wars and you knew people disliked the prequels, you'd play it safe too. I.e. a soft reboot of ANH with lots of practical effects and fan service and at the same time set up a new set of actors with roles analogous to Luke/Han/Leia/Darth Vader and option Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford for one or maybe two movies to do the handover.
From a business point of view, it made a lot of sense. It just wasn't a very memorable movie, and probably couldn't have been given the business constraints.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
The thing that bothers me about the movie is the distribution deal Disney worked out with theaters. To show the film, they had to agree to keep it on screens for at least 4 weeks.
I remember going to see The Force Awakens on a Friday night a few weeks after it was released. The theater was empty...That memory stands out more than the film.
I don't know about you, but watching a movie in an empty theater feels creepy.
FWIW, I prefer watching movies in an empty theater. The more people in the theater the more likely there will be rude/annoying people around and it only takes one or two of those to ruin the experience for a lot of other viewers.
That said I don't agree or understand why Disney is forcing the 4 week minimum on theaters either. Most people aren't going to see any movie twice just because it's still in the theater, clearly, since you remember seeing The Force Awakens in an empty theater. That policy really hurts small town theaters, many of which are not showing the movie for that reason, so that can't help Disney's sales. Disney also risks cannibalising viewers from other movies in their empire (animated Disney movies, Marvel, etc.). I feel like whatever incremental sales bump they get by forcing that 4 week minimum would be off-set by those factors... but what do I know... I'm sure Disney ran all their profit maximising algorithms to support the policy...
Since we're veering off-topic anyway.... If Disney/Hollywood want to make more money in the theaters, what they should really do is throw out Hollywood's antiquated flat ticket price structure and allow prices to fluctuate up and down with real market demands (e.g. opening week vs later, action vs drama movies, more or less popular franchises or actors/actresses, discount/rewards programs, etc.).
Ray seems like less of a Mary Sue than Luke was.
You mean the part where she got zero training and was suddenly using the force vs luke who got training and was still shit at it even during the next movie until he went for more training?
Both were part time pilots, but Luke was able to fly a fighter down that trench and make an impossible shot that the computer couldn't, while being chased and shot at by Vader, yet Ray immediately crashed into the ground and then a building.
Somewhat true. Except the part where luke had already had experience 'bulls eyeing" small critters in his speeder right?
Luke infiltrated the Death Star, escaped from storm troopers and immediately decided to become a hero with no second thoughts or doubts. Ray nearly gave up and wanted out, it took a force vision to turn her back. She actually did very little in the film, and barely managed to bring the fight with Ren to a draw despite him having been shot by a powerful weapon and not actually trying to kill her.
True, but then again Luke didn't really have a choice to infiltrate the death star. Remember that giant moon, no wait space station?
The problem with the EU is spoilers. Much of the build up is speculation, much of the enjoyment is being surprised and seeing something new. You still have the EU books, it's not like they burned then all.
They simply tried to burn them all because they wanted to write their own cannon instead of using the best out of the EU. Which means that they likely didn't want to pay the original creators any royalty rights.
Om, nomnomnom...
In the media blitz that was absolutely the case. In the actual movie, I don't recall too much being made of Rey's gender.
The main issue with her character within the movie was the fact that she was some bum who became aware of her powers and did impossible shit in the span of about 14 seconds.