Star Wars 7 shit talk

There was so much internet, so much hype, and so much nerd enthusiasm. All those news stories about fans dressed up, waiting in line. Racoon Tanuki is rewriting history; fans didn't turn on TPM until later.

Yeah, not until they saw it.

I turned on TPM opening night when Proops' character first showed up. Up until then, I had just been confused and a little bored. Prior to actually entering the theater, I was completely fucking stoked.

I remember thinking the lightsaber battle was cool, maybe not as cool as the trailer led me to hope, but... TRADE FEDERATION?!? WHINY KID? POD RACES?!

also the entire casting of a younger kid opposite Natalie Portman, who could look young-ish but was definitely in her mid teens. that whiny kid is going to mature and somehow woo her in the next two films? what is this shit

yo rt/ott why tf are you so concerned with what a message board full of fossilized out of work music critics finds cool

I turned on TPM opening night when Proops' character first showed up. Up until then, I had just been confused and a little bored. Prior to actually entering the theater, I was completely fucking stoked.

This is pretty much exactly how it went for me - my wife waited in line for tickets, we went opening night, and I was giving it the benefit of the doubt until the 45 minute podrace scene in the middle of it just destroyed everything.

I saw the next two out of obligation but honestly don't remember much about either of; just the other day I had a flashback that there was a scene with a bunch of people fighting monsters in some sort of gladiator colosseum setting and I don't know which film that was in or what it was happening for.

I saw both TPM and Attack of the Clones twice in the theaters, each time thinking that maybe seeing it again would help. For my second go at Attack, I regrettably convinced a whole group of people to come watch it with me, assuring them that it was better than the first one. Boy were those confusing, frustrating times.

Never saw Revenge of the Sith until youtube came out and people would upload whole movies like "Part 1 of 12".

i saw ep 2 on tv a little while ago and it was the most awful thing

I saw the next two out of obligation but honestly don't remember much about either of; just the other day I had a flashback that there was a scene with a bunch of people fighting monsters in some sort of gladiator colosseum setting and I don't know which film that was in or what it was happening for.

― joygoat, Monday, December 1, 2014 11:01 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My entire memory of the first three is a blur -- like I can't remember anything specific that happened in any of them and I am honestly not sure whether I saw all three of them or not.

I feel like there was a part where someone went underwater and it was sort of like the end of The Abyss if The Abyss had muppets.

for TPM my mom held a star wars party!!!! for me and my friends before we all went to the theater. i was 10. that was probably the most exciting moment of my life up til that point. i don't remember how i felt afterward but it wasn't ecstatic.

III is honestly a fair bit better than the other two, taking it up to a slightly below average summer blockbuster.

otm - I still remember skipping school with my best friend at the time, his mom sanctioned it, drove us to the theater. "i don't remember how i felt afterward but it wasn't ecstatic" - same

the emotional climax of III is "he killed...younglings," come on. III was marginally improved by having a lot more of McDiarmid but that is really about all I could say for it.

I was just about to say that you should never ever listen to anyone who attempts to convince you that that third one "actually isn't that bad"

2 is better than 1: the rainy planet, the hilarious love scenes. 3 is competent in a way that makes me like it less--it's just good enough to bump itself into a bracket where it cannot compete. 1 meanwhile has nothing. just nothing. these days the opening crawl about the interstellar trade federation and the disputed tax policy and confusion in the galactic senate rly makes me wistful: wish that movie was real.

III was better than VI, IIRC, but that's not saying a whole lot.

There's one surefire upside to Episode 7: it's sure to look golden in comparison to the preceding episode.

for TPM my mom held a star wars party!!!! for me and my friends before we all went to the theater. i was 10. that was probably the most exciting moment of my life up til that point. i don't remember how i felt afterward but it wasn't ecstatic.

― linda cardellini (zachlyon), Monday, December 1, 2014 11:11 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wait, did you go to the midnight showing at Snowden?

I was just about to say that you should never ever listen to anyone who attempts to convince you that that third one "actually isn't that bad"

It's far from an actual good movie, but it is more enjoyable than the others, and has some semblance of atmosphere and dramatic weight. I don't care enough that I'd expend much effort trying to convince anyone, just offering my opinion.

xp yeah snowden. not sure if the palace 9 was closed down yet but i know it wasn't there.

I think the feeling of seeing the trade ministers

The befuddlement

It's a feeling I can still recall with some measurement of accuracy

Ep 1 - I remember the podrace, Jar-Jar, and that weird-ass immaculate conception dialogue/reveal.

Ep 2 - Wasn't part of this about Boba Fett's kid or something? Or Boba Fett as a kid? I can't conjure up a single memory from this; for me, its enduring legacy is Triumph's nerd-baiting outside a NYC theater.

Ep 3 - Felt like I napped through most of it, and then woke up suddenly when heavy shit went down near the end thinking, huh, that wasn't completely awful.

xposts

old lunch the force is telling me that you have something to say about Return of the Jedi. out with it!

oh and definitely not midnight. 5 or 5:30. i remember this day very well. xp xp xp

everything that i can remember about episodes 2 and 3 comes from the words in the titles. episode 1 i remember clearly, sadly, because i saw it 3 times in theaters trying to convince myself that it wasn't broken

I think the feeling of seeing the trade ministers

The befuddlement

It's a feeling I can still recall with some measurement of accuracy

― 龜, Monday, December 1, 2014 11:25 AM (33 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

god totally. it made me feel dumb. love how george always says adults didn't like it bc they forget the original trilogy was FOR KIDS but then he makes it all about tariffs.

Ah ok. That would make sense, but there were definitely some younger kids in the audience.

xp to zach.

when heavy shit went down near the end

For all my half-hearted defence of III earlier, I must admit that the Anakin/Obi-Wan lava fight is completely fucking stupid.

III was so ugly and inkompetent. If people hadn't known for 20 years what would happen, none of it would make sense. I still can't figure out if the jedis realize they are about to be murdered, or if they have some weird tick.

ep 3 came out when i was a wizened 17 and there really was a lot of hype about it being Not That Bad, and it sort of wasn't too embarrassing. george obv listened to the criticism a bit and buried jar jar etc. that's the era of me reading slashfilm and being a pretty genuine nerdlinger, maybe that's the new internet marketing evil christopher ott is talking about itt

Hah yeah 3 was the only one I felt kind of good about after leaving the theater

I hear DLH's criticism of it above, but it makes sense to me since I have always rated ROTJ over ESB

I want my cheap emotional highs

The only good thing to come out of TPM was Darth Maul

The best part of that was that Lucas created an interesting character and completely intended for him to immediately die

like the only new interesting character, you throw him down the well

I remember one scene in II, I think, where they were trapped in this giant absurd factory, running around on conveyor belts and trying to escape the giant stamping hammers, swinging blades, and jets of flame that you normally get in factories. The whole thing was transparently designed for a videogame (and ripped off of countless others). IIRC this was the scene where R2 suddenly developed the flying ability he'd never previously shown any evidence of. (Or that he would never again show any evidence of, in the movie timeline.)

it was about boba fett that's it

I will admit to some guilty lols about R2 and Yoda having these capabilities in Episode I-III. Overemphasizing that everything is shiny and new and acting like the original trilogy was old and broken was one of the stupidest things about the prequel trilogy. Everything was supposed to be dirty and piecemeal because it's an old universe, not because the Emperor took over.

at some point in that conveyor belt scene, a machine rips off the midriff of natalie portman's space outfit: lucas inserting Sex

Worth mentioning that the most reasonable scripts of the whole series (Star Wars/Empire Strikes Back) were heavily contributed to or edited by women. I think it's been shrugged off by Lucas, but his ex-wife had some strong contributions to script editing and not just film editing.

BEHOLD THE MIDRIFF

http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_md13t6U5HI1rg9byko1_r1_500.png

also, lol:

For the film's famous opening crawl, Lucas wrote a six-paragraph (with four sentences each) composition. He said that "The crawl is such a hard thing because you have to be careful that you're not using too many words that people don't understand. It's like a poem." Lucas showed his draft to his friends. Director Brian De Palma, who was there, described it: "The crawl at the beginning looks like it was written on a driveway. It goes on forever. It's gibberish." He said to Lucas, "You're out of your mind... Let me write this for you"; De Palma helped to edit the text into the form used in the film.

I would like to hear what De Palma thinks about the trade federation

all these posts about the prequels, preceded by enthusiasm for the new sequels, is incredible

xp

some sort of abuse survivor rationalization syndrome

it took YEARS for people to turn on the prequels and admit they were terrible

There are plenty of stories told in the expanded Star Wars universe that are interesting, even in what's now seen as canonical. There are a couple reasonable cartoon series, including a new one that precedes/runs concurrently with the rebellion. Three shit movies with one common denominator (George Lucas thinking he should write/direct them) doesn't mean that future movies will be bad. Lucas out of the writer/director role means there's very little linkage between Eps 1 - 3 and 7.

uh no, I firmly remember thinking "do I even need to see this in the theater" about Ep 2? Who are these people you're talking about?

xpost
no way! if i remember correctly the day after TPM came out everyone was barfing in the streets

70s trailers are pretty goofy compared to today's fare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kd5_WzYcH0