• @[email protected]
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    5 months ago

    The sequels aren’t bad because they’re woke (are they woke, though?), they’re bad because they’re bad.

    For example, I think Daisy Ridley played the part very well, and the character fit in the overarching universe. But the plot was awful and predictable.

    And somehow Palpatine returned.

    EDIT/ADDITION for emphasis: I loved the acting. Especially Finn. I didn’t find Kylo Ren to be a believable character, but Adam Driver did a great job regardless. Everyone did a great job with Ep VII, except the writers and Disney execs.

    • @[email protected]
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      1005 months ago

      These memes always rub me the wrong way. First, they’re making fun of hateful Star Wars fans, which is great. But they’re also ignoring just how bad the sequels were. Make no mistake, they were BAD.

      • @[email protected]
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        465 months ago

        This, heaven forbid a fan who legitimately wanted to like the movies just didn’t like them. No problem with the time skip, the actors, love interests, etc. the plot just sucked, the story was haphazardly thrown together. Disney wanted to cash in on nostalgia and pumped out 3 movies with no prior planning or guiding direction between the films. But if anyone complains they’re being hypercritical, or racist, or sexist, or doesn’t appreciate the spirit of the movies. Fuck that, at least Filoni is slowly fixing it. Stomach literally sank when I learned he wasn’t in charge of the acolyte in some form.

    • @[email protected]
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      5 months ago

      Episode 7 is still good. Is it a rip of episode 4? Sure. But it’s still actually fun to watch, with good pacing, and good characters.

      Also, Kylo stopping, and holding, a blaster shot mid shoot is fucking cool!

      • @[email protected]
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        5 months ago

        The biggest problem with episode 7 is that it gives us “Empire vs. Rebels 2” which i hate as the direction for the future that episode 6 set up. The second biggest problem is its a bunch of mystery boxes with no plans to back them up i.e why is Rey important? Who the fuck is the green goggle lady? Why is Luke a hermit? What is the purpose of the map to Luke? Who fucking cares cause JJ sure didn’t

      • @[email protected]
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        5 months ago

        But it’s still actually fun to watch, with his pacing, and good characters.

        I disagree with all of this.

        Eight was half of a good movie. Seven was a series of vinettes of varying quality that ended in disappointment.

      • @[email protected]
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        235 months ago

        7 is fine, 8 is better imo, 9 is atrocious. If they were able to just make 9 decent the sequels would be acceptable. They really, really needed to have these movies thought out from the start though. You can absolutely tell they have no idea where the story goes from one movie to the next.

      • @[email protected]
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        165 months ago

        It’s so fucking cool… and makes no god damn sense whatsoever. Especially when you realize he’s supposed to be some hotheaded half-trained guy who probably has undiagnosed ADHD. He couldn’t concentrate enough to do that if he was sitting meditating in the most serene place in the galaxy, much less in the middle of a trainwreck that the scene took place in.

        It was unimaginably forced with no basis in plot or the established universe.

        Which pretty much speaks to the entire direction of the sequels in general. “Ooh, pretty… but super fucking dumb”

      • @[email protected]
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        115 months ago

        That Kylo scene is my favorite ever display of using the force. It was so fucking awesome and ominous and powerful.

      • @[email protected]
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        65 months ago

        Not a big fan of Star Wars (I know right? Why would I mention that here) and even I got to admit that laser holding scene was badass.

      • @[email protected]
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        5 months ago

        Finally! All the complaints about the plot essentially being a redo of ANH are completely valid, but they don’t make it a bad movie. It’s actually fun to watch and the characters have some character, which is not something you can say about a certain crowd favourite around here…

    • @[email protected]
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      245 months ago

      There was some social commentary in that golden casino planet where the rich lived in excess while the poor barely got by (pay no attention to the Jabba behind the curtain)

      And, of course, they cast minorities in leading roles!

      • @[email protected]
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        5 months ago

        Lando Calrissian deserved more screen time in the original trilogy. He was an incredible character.

      • partial_accumen
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        5 months ago

        There was some social commentary in that golden casino planet where the rich lived in excess while the poor barely got by (pay no attention to the Jabba behind the curtain)

        Good world building, but it did nothing to move the story forward. The entire casino planet could have been cut and the story would be unchanged without any social or story impacts.

        If they were going for social commentary, they could have set it up to find out that rebel weapons like the X-wing fighters and whatever macguffin they needed so save the main plot line were built by slave labor.

        Semi-evil procurement character: “Yeah, I understand what you need. I can have it built in a day. Its an extremely toxic manufacturing process and because I’m not set up for that work, 20 or 30 slaves will die but thats no problem. Yeah, I can get it for you in the day you need it.”

        They would have had to make a choice between save the slaves or getting the macguffin. They could have still chosen to not come away with the macguffin because they chose to save the slave labor and at least that would have given purpose to the whole distraction of that storyline.

        And, of course, they cast minorities in leading roles!

        I liked that part. John Boyega, among others, was a great actor. Kelly Marie Tran did as best she could with the bad writing.

    • @[email protected]
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      225 months ago

      Star Wars is about as a woke as it always has been. Some people are mad about strong female roles when the first movie that came out in the 70s and every after it has had strong female roles.

      • @[email protected]
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        5 months ago

        There is a difference between well-written female characters that also happen to be strong vs hollow, soulless, undeveloped charachters whose only defining feature is being a “strong female character”.

        See the difference beetween Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Leia, Padme, Rita Vrataski, Gamora, Nebula, Naomi Nagata[1], and so on vs Galadriel (rings of power), Capitan Marvel, Ironhearth (MCU), She-hulk and whatever happened in Star Wars Acolyte (I could go on like this for a long time, but I think that you get what I mean already).

        [1] I even included modern examples, to highlight that it’s not old good, new bad

    • Orbituary
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      125 months ago

      Palpatine was supposed to return. The clones eventually were turned into a way to let Palpatine jump bodies. But in the immortal words of the Matrix, “Not like this. Not like this.”

    • @[email protected]
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      115 months ago

      They removed Finn from the poster for the Chinese release. Star Wars is not and has never been “woke”, Disney always just does what makes them the most amount of money.

      • @[email protected]
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        35 months ago

        I wouldn’t necessarily say that they are not woke. If it maximises their returns, they will definitely do anything they think will get them the woke crowd’s money (see also the shoehorned lesbian kiss in ep9). They will also do their best to get the money of the anti-woke crowd (see also: removing the black man from posters; keeping the lesbian kiss contained to five easily cuttable seconds for certain releases).

        It’s more correct to not think of them as woke nor not woke, they are just whoring themselves out to whomever they believe they can get to bring them the largest amounts of money (see the company’s history of political donations).

        • @[email protected]
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          25 months ago

          Yeah my point was they don’t have a political agenda besides what makes them the most amount of money. If trans people become universally socially accepted, they’ll make movies with trans characters. If the US keeps moving to the right, they’ll probably stop having minority characters altogether. All that matters to them is money.

      • @[email protected]
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        25 months ago

        Rainbow capitalism at its finest. My girlfriend showed me a clip from an interview with the writers behind The Acolyte saying it’ll be the gayest star wars ever. The shows not over yet so they might be right but so far they had a lesbian couple and couldn’t manage so much as a peck.

        It’s not critical to the plot or anything but it demonstrates that there’s some really simple lines Disney still won’t cross when it comes to LGBT representation.

    • @[email protected]
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      115 months ago

      I was genuinely shocked to see how good an actor Hayden Christensen was when he wasn’t in a Star Wars movie.

      • @[email protected]
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        75 months ago

        Gotta get that sexy JJ magic box plot to get all the kiddies hooked without doing any legwork!

      • @[email protected]
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        35 months ago

        That’s one of the things what’s good about The Boys. Show it to the audience, not tell them.

      • @[email protected]
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        15 months ago

        “Hey guys, so I just did a bit of returning off screen and made 10,000 death star ships”

    • @[email protected]
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      25 months ago

      I feel so bad for the cast that gave it their all and performed well in a film that sound up being so shit. Frankly the crew too. Imagine living the dream being a camera operator on Star Wars and even though your work is exceptional, the film sucked.

      Breaks my heart.

    • @[email protected]
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      25 months ago

      Somehow… eh? Let me tell you about Darth Plagueis the Wise and his asshat of apprentice.
      But yes, even a grade school pupil with crayons could have it better explained.