Star Wars Movies

[ManicMatt]

Like a blog Mandarb, or with videos where you host it, and show clips?

Hayden's acting. I can pull a bigger range of emotions with my arse. It just needed Mark Wahlburg to complete the deadpan acting set. He should be called Mark Woodenbloke. Or something.

[Darth Mandarb]

Like a blog Mandarb, or with videos where you host it, and show clips?

A good mix of all;

The parts that describe what went wrong will be video based (showing the parts of the movie being addressed)
The part where I explain how it should have been done will have visual aids (probably quick renders in Blender) to help illustrate my points

It's still in the VERY early planning stages so it's gonna be here anytime too soon... unless somebody figures out a way to give a few more hours in each day!

[ManicMatt]

You mean it's NOT gonna be here anytime soon, haha!

I just spent a few hours editing footage of channel 4 interviewing Robert Downey Jr for a piss take and I'm starting to think it was a waste of time and won't be funny. Well I'll record my own bits and we'll see...

[milkanannan]

I'm sorry to bring the thread back, but I just want to talk about upcoming Obi Wan and just generally all things 'Star Wars'. Hope nobody minds taking the discussion that way.

So...who else is stoked about Obi Wan? 10 days countdown now. I can't wait to get some additional background on Anakin/Darth's relationship with Kenobi and maybe even some background on Luke and Leia's upbringing. Hopefully they do something to help flesh out Ahsoka's place in the universe too because at the moment her story feels a bit disjointed between the movies, Clone Wars, Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett.

[Danvzare]

I'm sorry to bring the thread back, but I just want to talk about upcoming Obi Wan and just generally all things 'Star Wars'. Hope nobody minds taking the discussion that way.

So...who else is stoked about Obi Wan? 10 days countdown now. I can't wait to get some additional background on Anakin/Darth's relationship with Kenobi and maybe even some background on Luke and Leia's upbringing. Hopefully they do something to help flesh out Ahsoka's place in the universe too because at the moment her story feels a bit disjointed between the movies, Clone Wars, Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett.

Personally, I'm not going to watch it unless I hear it's worth watching, like with The Mandalorian. I've come to realize that just because it has "Star Wars" in the name, doesn't mean it's automatically going to be good.
I've recently learnt that about all major franchises now. It turns out if you pick and choose the good stuff rather than trying to consume it all, you actually have a much more pleasant experience with those franchises that are constantly pushing out new content on an almost monthly basis.

[milkanannan]

To each their own. I like watching the Star Wars universe unfold and this upcoming series has both Ewan McGreggor and Hayden Christensen, so we're tying tightly back into the movies. Also, I mean The Mandalorian and, admittedly to a lesser extent, BoBF were pretty cool series that helped develop some really significant characters, so I'd guess odds are that Obi Wan isn't going to strike out completely.

Anyway, I'm totally stoked. In my simple world it's nice to have a short stretch where you get to look forward to a new episode each week. (Maybe it helps my life is a pretty boring one. )

[LimpingFish]

I consider myself a Star Wars nostalgia fan; I enjoy certain elements of current Star Wars based solely on the fact that they remind me of my childhood. I'm certainly not the kind of fan who actively seeks out new content.

I thought The Mandalorian was fine, Boba's Big Book of Fett was...less so. I have little connection to the prequels (or any elements of the Clone Wars saga), zero to the sequels, and actively disliked Rogue One and Solo. I'll catch up with Obi Wan, at some point, probably. I'll likely skip Ashoka. I will actively avoid Andor (a miserable, depressing character), and we'll see what else the future holds.

But, hey, at least it's not Star Trek...¬¬

[eri0o]

But, hey, at least it's not Star Trek...¬¬

cries in Stargate

[milkanannan]

How are you guys liking Obi Wan so far? I’m digging it. The overarching story is a bit tired (one rescue mission after another? Seriously?), but some of the core scenes are cool and build suspense well. Im guessing a surprise character is going to turn up the way Cad Bane showed up in BoBF. Maybe Darth Maul with his robotic legs?

[Mandle]

Star Wars just feels made up to me now that Lucas isn't involved.

(awaits the obvious responses)

[heltenjon]

Always in production, the franchise is.

[Mandle]

Always in production, the franchise is.

hahaha

[milkanannan]

Spoiler if you haven’t seen Obi-Wan ep05:

Spoiler

So…Reva spent her life hunting Jedi so she would have the opportunity to kill Vader personally because he…killed her Jedi youngling friends? I liked the episode but I mean that twist is a bit hard to get behind.

[close]

[gerald_koonce]

I'm sorry to bring the thread back, but I just want to talk about upcoming Obi Wan and just generally all things 'Star Wars'. Hope nobody minds taking the discussion that way.

So...who else is stoked about Obi Wan? 10 days countdown now. I can't wait to get some additional background on Anakin/Darth's relationship with Kenobi and maybe even some background on Luke and Leia's upbringing. Hopefully they do something to help flesh out Ahsoka's place in the universe too because at the moment her story feels a bit disjointed between the movies, Clone Wars, Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett.

Personally, I'm not going to watch it unless I hear it's worth watching, like with The Mandalorian. I've come to realize that just because it has "Star Wars" in the name, doesn't mean it's automatically going to be good.
I've recently learnt that about all major franchises now. It turns out if you pick and choose the good stuff rather than trying to consume it all, you actually have a much more pleasant experience with those franchises that are constantly pushing out new content on an almost monthly basis.

I agree with you, but fans will go for more than that, and the masses will fall for the magic word combination in the title. That's why Star Wars is a perfect field for experimentation with minimal risk. And the field is so fertile that the viewer is once again ready to turn a blind eye to the errors or even outright stupidity in the script, just to enjoy the stories from a galaxy far, far away again.
'Star Wars' is such a powerful brand that anything can be produced under it, and that 'anything' will always break the box office.

[Mandle]

I'm pretty much done with Star Wars.
Disney took the high ground but I went in anyway, and got badly burned.

[milkanannan]

You guys are too harsh! Disney’s done some good stuff with expanding the universe. I mean, not every character is a memorable one, but Disney’s definitely added some lore that enriches and deepens the experience.

[LimpingFish]

You guys are too harsh! Disney’s done some good stuff with expanding the universe...

I have to disagree. I mean, can you honestly name one thing that enhances the original trilogy? I can certainly think of a few that actively lessen them. Everything doesn't need to be explained, or expanded upon. The new trilogy did a handful of interesting things, mostly with Luke's character and fate (ironically what a lot of hardcore fans hated), and, despite how it ended up, the Rey/Kylo dynamic had the potential to be interesting (what if they actually had joined forces at the end of The Last Jedi?). Once Palpatine came back, the whole thing collapsed in on itself.

The Mandalorian worked better before it tied itself to cannon characters, and I'll maintain that season one of the The Mandalorian is the best thing to come out of Disney SW. The reappearance of Boba Fett has really led to nothing much, certainly nothing to justify his own series, and The Book of Boba Fett ended up doing little more that threading water between Mandalorian seasons.

Kenobi is...I don't know...good...ish? What I mean is that it's enjoyable, if you don't think about it too hard. To be honest, when they introduced baby Leia, I almost stopped watching. It really cements the idea that Star Wars is creatively bankrupt when you have to bring in child versions of popular characters. Bringing back a CGI Luke Skywalker was bad enough, but this constant desire to tie everything to the original films and it's relatively small cast of characters is becoming ridiculous. And it makes it seem like nothing of interest happens in Star Wars' "vast" universe that doesn't in some way tie into the Skywalker clan. But the Obi-Wan/Anakin conflict is...fun? Or rather, it's a fun concept, with potential, and good moments, that ultimately kind of fizzles out. That's kind of the overall problem with new SW; some potentially interesting concepts or plot points, that are either averagely executed, never actually becoming more than the sum of their parts, or that crash spectacularly, under the weight of their own expectations.

Regardless, whatever adventures Kenobi could have had, we know that he ends up back on Tatooine, living in a cave, alive and well. Nothing can happen that alters that fact, making whatever happens to him during the years between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope essentially meaningless. It's kind of the same reason why Shadows of the Empire (remember that banger?), set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, ending up being a pointless diversion to nothing; we know where the characters are at the beginning of Empire, (we've known since 1980!) so we also know that nothing earth shattering is going to happen to change that. And we know Princess Leia is a major character in the original trilogy, so kidnapping her child version is another pointless diversion. Nothing will ultimately happen to her.

Possible "Old Republic/High Republic" shows in the works are a chance to introduce new plot lines and new characters, unconnected to the original trilogy, but I can't shake the feeling that it'll just be some ancestor of Luke, or Palpatine, or Sy Snoodles great (times whatever) grandfather, standing in for actual original characters.

I'll also just clarify that the books/comics/videogames hold no interest to me, so if the best of new SW is happening in those mediums, it's a sad indication of just how poorly handled the live-action side really is.

But I've lived through the whole 40+ years of Star Wars (and there was a period in the late 80s/early 90's were Star Wars was more or less dead), good and bad, so maybe my views are tainted by cynical weariness.

[milkanannan]

You guys are too harsh! Disney’s done some good stuff with expanding the universe...

I have to disagree...

Definitely some valid points in there. To be clear, I'm not trying to argue Disney has eclipsed the original trilogy or anything like that. However, I think letting the original trilogy fade into history just to appease Star Wars purists would be unfortunate. I mean, it's not uncommon to see kids today (40 years later) that are interested in the Star Wars universe, and I find it interesting that most kids still recognise the original cast as the most relevant characters and strongest force users the galaxy has ever produced. Ask any kid who their favourite character is and it's Vader (overwhelmingly) or Luke, so I don't think it is fair to say any of the new media has completely tainted the legacy of the original trilogy. If anything, it's opened it up to a new generation of fans.

Disney's also made the universe much more representative, which I think is cool and makes the universe relevant and accessible to everyone.

Regardless, whatever adventures Kenobi could have had, we know that he ends up back on Tatooine, living in a cave, alive and well. Nothing can happen that alters that fact, making whatever happens to him during the years between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope essentially meaningless.

This is just stubborn old person talk (I can recognise it as a fellow stubborn old person). Piecing the story together is part of the fun. Don't forget that following Obi-Wan's predictable story arc also gave us some insight into the nature of the inquisitors, Order 66 and the Jedi tomb, and where 'Ben' (Kylo Ren) got his name. Not to mention filling in the huge storyline gaps between young and old Vader.

Anyway, is Disney's Star Wars without its faults? No, of course not. But they've largely expanded the Star Wars experience and audience and brought life the original trilogy would not have otherwise enjoyed. I mean, to my mind it's like an ongoing celebration of the original trilogy. That's more of an enhancement than the original trilogy being some movies granddad pulls out once in a while.

[LimpingFish]

Don't forget that following Obi-Wan's predictable story arc also gave us some insight into the nature of the inquisitors, Order 66 and the Jedi tomb, and where 'Ben' (Kylo Ren) got his name. Not to mention filling in the huge storyline gaps between young and old Vader.

Sure, I mean, if world-building is what you're after, then yes, you could get something from the story. But it's world-building with little or no real narrative impact, filling in details that ultimately prove more or less superfluous, because they bring little or nothing to bear on the original story. It's world-building and lore after the fact, squeezing square pegs into round holes, in a bid to make the work seem relevant to the existing story. It's my biggest problems with prequels of any flavor; we simply don't need this information to enhance our understanding of the originals. Obi Wan Kenobi summed up everything we needed to know about his past during A New Hope, in a speech consisting of a few lines of dialog. We didn't need six hours of television to make the Kenobi/Vader showdown in A New Hope seem like an important event, or make the revelation that Darth Vader is Luke's father at the end of The Empire Strikes Back any more mind-blowing.

Is it cool for fans to see these events? Sure, why not? I'd rather they were done with more thought to how they actually fit into the established narrative, but I don't have a problem with it happening.

When I said bad prequels can lessen the originals, I had examples of that superfluous world-building/lore-extending in mind; the entirety of Solo, for example, which sucked almost all the mystique out of the character in an attempt to make itself seem like a story worth telling. This is why he's called Solo (being just a cool name apparently wasn't good enough), this is why he calls Chewbacca "Chewie" (It's not a well-earned term of endearment, it's just because he's lazy?), this is were he got his gun (yep, from some guy nobody cares about), here's a mouthy robot who may actually be the Millennium Falcon's onboard computer during the original trilogy, but which adds nothing by existing. And most redundant of all, here's a two-minute scene of the card game where Lando Calrissian loses the Falcon to Han Solo; information that we already had from a single throwaway comment spoken during Empire, and which does exactly zero to enhance that existing knowledge.

Say what you like about the sequel trilogy, and it does indeed have huge flaws, from a crippling lack of direction, to some deeply unsatisfying storytelling, but they interfere less with how we view the originals than either the prequel trilogy, or most of A New Hope-era Disney Star Wars.

Can it be fun? Sure. Can it be well-made? Of course. Once you're willing to let go of the idea that anything needs to make sense, some of it can be really enjoyable. But none of it is essential, and most of it will be forgotten, or glossed over once Disney hit a creative wall. I highly doubt we'll ever get an Episode X, because there's nowhere else to go; they couldn't think of anything better than bringing Palpatine back in Rise of Skywalker, which managed to shrink the universe to an almost comical point, making everything that happens outside the sphere of influence of either Palpatine or the Skywalker clan seem inconsequential. And what will happen, anyway? Yet another "empire" to defeat? A more powerful sith than Palpatine/Sidious, who was super-secretly behind everything from the start? An even bigger Death Star?!?

But fans love stormtroopers, fans love lightsabers, Star Destroyers, the Millennium Falcon, and yes, Death Stars...so you're stuck in this short time-period, forever adding extra layers to a story that's already been told. It's why we got Rogue One. And it's why I doubt Disney will ever truly move beyond the influence of the original trilogy, and will continue to look backwards instead of forwards.

tldr: Old man yells at cloud.

[Stupot]

I highly doubt we'll ever get an Episode X, because there's nowhere else to go;

My money is on an MCU crossover.