Official Star Wars Thread

Perun said:
I'm wondering why Chewie wasn't offended by the word "fuzzball". If you consider it, it's a very racist word, given that it's not the wookie's fault that they're furry and fuzzy.

There's a furry convention in a hotel nearby and I thus saw a bunch of furries at the station today. I'm a bit traumatised.
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If Han says it, its probably ok. If Luke or Lando say it, especially Lando, most likely an undesired result. R2D2 definitely probably uttered such an insult directed his way but since he speaks in bleeps and bloops most likely Chewie can't even comprehend it, but he would probably just laugh.
 
I have good feeling about Rogue One. Looks like it won't be plagued with teen drama elements of episodes 1-3, should be a great straightforward SF action.
 
I have come across this interesting review of Revenge of the Sith today. It is eleven years old, indeed, but raises some interesting questions and criticisms not only regarding that movie, but the prequels in general and, for once, others than "too digital" etc.
Though some of the arguments I might disagree with, it's still an interesting read. These feelings or the reasons specified within might be the reason why I seem to inexplicably like Phantom most (as far as the prequels are concerned), though I'm not sure.

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2005/20051003/star-wars-a.shtml

What do you think?
 
A good read.

In short, she criticizes the prequel films (and to a certain extent the entire SW universe) for the way some ordinary human emotions are portrayed as dangerous, when they would often be seen as the ones that make life worth living. Or maybe she is rather criticizing how this philosophy is taken as a premise for the entire film series, and how Lucas connects that philosophy to the group who are seen as the ultimate good guys. I also get the impression that she would forgive Lucas this, had he taken the opportunity to provide at least some characters who contrasted it. But while Padmé, when first introduced, could have grown into a heroine of some sort, her fate is to fade away and only be a tool for Palpatine to engineer Anakin's fall.

Finally, she seems to be OK with this in the original trilogy because of the vibe those films had, whereas the prequel trilogy had a more serious vibe that called for the deeper approach she writes about.

All in all, the criticism of the prequels can be boiled down to this: more than seven hours of film spent on just showing the events that led up to the rise of the Empire and how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, all set in a very dark tone, without providing any actual reflection on the philosophical framework for the story.

And without taking a stand on the individual points she lists, I can agree. There is less depth in the prequels than their often dark tone calls for, less humour, and the characters don't feel that real. For most of the time, the prequels feel like they try to connect all the things that were hinted to in the original trilogy.
 
terrell39 said:
Nuance and ambiguous? Not good. That means no answers to questions posed in TFA:
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I wouldn't read it this literally. Driver was referring to Rian Johnson's style of writing/directing in general, probably meaning they're aiming at something deeper and original. Each comment like this hypes me beyond limits and makes me more comfortable with my prediction that Rian is cooking a 10/10 Star Wars film...
 
Srogyy said:
I wouldn't read it this literally. Driver was referring to Rian Johnson's style of writing/directing in general, probably meaning they're aiming at something deeper and original. Each comment like this hypes me beyond limits and makes me more comfortable with my prediction that Rian is cooking a 10/10 Star Wars film...
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I agree with this, I am sure VIII will answer some questions from VII, but will probably introduce new questions ... but I would not really expect answers to the big questions until IX
 
It's interesting that early on he brings up all the prequel reviews out there because as far as TFA content is concerned, he's now on the other side of that. The Phantom Menace review was cool because he brought up a lot of points about the movie that hadn't been discussed before that everybody parrots now. Every point in his TFA review has been discussed to death by now and he didn't add much to it. I suspect he was aware of this because the main focus of the review was definitely not the movie.

So I'm glad the bulk of this review was dedicated to the ring theories and prequel apologist silliness. The commentary on Star Wars fandom in general is always refreshing.
 
Obviously, everyone (including me) expected and anticipated a Plinkett review for TFA. But I think it's a very tough situation. With the Prequel Trilogy, Plinkett more or less pioneered in-depth video reviews, and they were films that he loathed. Now, not only the film world has changed, as is pointed out in the review, but also the world of reception. The amount of review channels on YouTube is beyond reason, and everyone has something to say about Star Wars. That puts RLM in a tough situation, because the perception of many reviewers is also influenced by Plinkett. So... what can he do, especially if his opinion on the film is positive?

What it boils down to is a very fair review which acknowledges that many of the problems from the PT were fixed, emphasises a few points worth talking about, and is most interesting when it doesn't talk about TFA per se. However, I don't find it entirely convincing in many points. I like how it calls out pretentious philosophy post grads who think they have it all figured out because they read an article or heard a lecture on an obscure theory. But the discussion of the Star Wars Ring Theory would have benefited from either being more systematical or zooming in on one or two examples more in-depth to expose all the weaknesses.

The talk about the articles and listicles set to redeem the PT had a lot of truth to it, but in the end, it was more cherry-picking the dumbest things that were said than a profound criticism. Granted, I understand that there's no reason to go back to the PT in detail, but again, maybe it would have been better to pull out one article as an example and discuss it more in-depth.

Basically, two things stuck out that resonated with me: The criticism of the corporate movie world and the sexlessness of Disney's Star Wars. It would have been interesting to tie these two points together and explore this avenue further, but I'm glad I'm not the only one bothered by these things.
 
As an aside to the above (because this got me thinking) - Star Wars reviews are always interesting to me...I can't speak for the rest of the world, but in the US, I honestly think Star Wars is so completely interwoven into the childhood fabric of people in my age group (born between 1965- 1980), that it's truly hard for people in that demographic to be objective for anything post ROTJ. People either have elevated expectations of receiving a quasi-religious experience (and get pissed when those unrealistic expectations aren't met), or they become rampant apologists and go into ecstasy as soon as they hear John William's classic score.

Perun said:
Basically, two things stuck out that resonated with me: The criticism of the corporate movie world and the sexlessness of Disney's Star Wars. It would have been interesting to tie these two points together and explore this avenue further, but I'm glad I'm not the only one bothered by these things.
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I agree - I would have like to have seen those topics explored in greater depth. I thought I read somewhere that Abrams was conscious of the gender aspect of the movie (specifically; creating a movie appealing to young women) and that he wanted to abandon some aspects of the "Saturday Morning Serial" formula for TFA (unlike Lucas who relied on that).
 
I think Mike and Rich from RLM have said before that they are not really interested in doing a deep critique of ring theory because they would have to go back over the prequels.
 
Beautiful poster (looks like the final theatrical one). New trailer coming tomorrow!

Rogue-One-Poster.jpg
 
I'm fascinated to see how this one will alter my viewing of a New Hope (if at all) - especially if it's supposed to end shortly before ANH starts. This is looking great so far... that last trailer has my pretty excited.
 
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