Star Wars: Episode IX - THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

[TheDucky]

Look, this is just opinion vs opinion - just like it was before you posted what you did.

But this got started because you posted something that suggested it was "unreachable expectations" and "unfounded entitlement" (which sound like chapter titles from an aspirational SJW children's book) as a way to try to retcon the PT reaction that a TON of people had. Rather than their opinion having validity, you made some stuff up about backstory baggage that people dragged into the movie.

It?s not made up whatsoever. You admitted to it too by wanting it to look like the OT effects I never said your opinion isn?t valid, but to say people DIDN?T have backstories to what happened, when there are those in this thread who admitted to doing just that, is 100% wrong. Part of the PT hate does indeed stem from not getting what audiences wanted and being compared to the OT, these points amplified the hate and issues with the movies. It wasn?t meant to absolve PT criticism, but to explain why it is so fierce. Objectively speaking, they aren?t awful movies. They have their issues, but the way you take about them is like they are as bad as Freddy Got Fingered.

My opinion is that these were bad movies, in many cases downright dreadful. Dreadful everything - stupid attempts at humor, lug-headed story, terrible acting, confusing and confused, laughably bad dialogue, worst titles in history, awful SW crawls, often poor FX. The real deal.

You don't agree - and that's totally fine. But you don't see me listing off random stuff to mock why you love the PT. "No, it's not your opinion, it's a deficit in your mind that makes you love the PT." Get what I'm saying?

That?s fine. I think you took what I?m saying the wrong way or I did a bad job explaining my thought. You don?t have a deficit in your mind

My comment was simply made because you tried to (pretty unconvincingly - maybe that's the issue) retcon and recategorize tens of millions of negative PT reactions - including my own - using made-up random stuff. Tired narratives of "You simply couldn't comprehend the genius of the PT because..."

No... just a different opinion. I say they are a cinematic train wreck, you say it's the SW version of Citizen Kane. And that's fine, right? And for the record, I hate that "raped my childhood" bs, and my view of GL was surprisingly undiminished by the PT.

I don?t think they are Citizen Kane, but they aren?t awful. Below average? Reasonable. But as I said before, they are on the level of ROTJ AND ROTS is critically at that level, if not better than ROTJ. Again, this stuff isn?t made up.

In any case all these things TheDucky is saying, even if valid, would also apply to those who hate the ST - ergo hating those films is also baseless and we must love it all.

Well I say never. Equal opportunity for all to dislike whatever Star Wars they dislike. Except if you dislike the OT

You don?t have to love anything, but the PT was doomed from the start because of those expectations and hype. ROTS proves my point. It was a good movie. Critically, as good or better than ROTJ, Yet, some relentlessly bash it and say literally everything is bad about it. When, that clearly isn?t the case.

ST hate is also entitlement based, I?m guilty of it myself. We all had a version of Luke that we wanted, be it from the EU or your mind, and when we didn?t get that, a bunch of us were mad. When they fundamentally shifted every single OT character from what we thought they should be, we got mad because we didn?t what we wanted.

Now, the difference between PT and ST hate, is the difference in entitlement. PT hate is ?unfounded.? There was nothing to measure what or who Qui-Gon Jinn was or Anakin Skywalker or how the Empire collapsed. No stories explaining what happened, no character growth destroyed or regressed. It was a clean slate.

ST hate has some reasonable entitlement to it. Some grew up with the EU. We knew what the heroes would become. We saw them grow as characters into who they were by the end of ROTJ. Luke from farm boy to Jedi. Han from selfish smuggler to caring heroic general. Leia from somewhat cold imperial senator to a lovable rebel leader. The ST fundamentally changed and regressed every one of these characters. Luke?s love, courage, and hope? Gone. A failure, a coward, who lost hope. Han?s newfound selfishness and heroic general? Gone. Turned into a selfish failed drunk. Leia?s leadership? Gone, as she watched the Republic she saved turn to dust with pretty much no one willing to help her. Failed mother and Jedi too.

What is so fundamentally shifted in the PT to the level of this? A backstory to Vader? Vader is still Vader in the OT. Yoda using a lightsaber? Yoda was still Yoda in the PT, he just used a lightsaber. The Force? The Force was still the same, still a energy field that binds the galaxy together, all the PT did was give a way to measure it. Still mysterious! But in an advanced galaxy far far away, of course they found a way to identify force sensitives. Doesn?t take away from the OT.

But the ST? Yeah, seeing how everything the OT heroes went through be meaningless, that takes away a whole lot more.

My childhood thankfully remains unraped.

This is just a personal theory, so take it with a grain of salt.....

Back in the early 90s comics were not mainstream like they are now. It was for nerds, by nerds, and it was a nerd industry only. And by god, we took it seriously.

The most controversial word among fandom and pros was that dreaded paradox:...."continuity." Continuity was of utmost importance to comic fans and when a write screwed up and contradicted established continuity, all hell broke loose.

Why? My personal theory is that we were nerds. Things didn't go the way we wanted them to in our personal lives. In middle school we were ridiculed...the cute girls didn't know we existed...the popular kids shunned us. But COMICS....comics was our realm. A realm of order, justice, and unbreakable rules.

So when those rules got broken in our personal little fantasy worlds it was doubly insulting. The writers and editors should have known better. One small slip in one issue of a character appearing who was supposed to be dead just threw all that order into chaos. It was maddening. Comics continuity was our small way of trying to regain CONTROL in our lives.

Little things like that drove me nuts for years. Inconsistencies, retcons, retcons that didn't work, retcons that were a huge slap in the face to longtime readers....(anyone remember "The Crossing" even where we learn Tony Stark was a murderous sleeper agent of Kang......during his ENTIRE EXISTENCE??)

And then along came the SW prequels which took everything we ever imagined about the backstory of our beloved trilogy and put it in a blender.

I think this was finally when I just accepted it......no more retcons, no more continuity, no more "making stuff up as you went alone."

I had an epiphany....."canon" is what you make it. Not what some corporation that holds the copyright to the intellectual property tells you. Take what you like and embrace it....leave the rest on the floor.

Once I freed my nerd brain from this slavish idea that continuity and canon "matters" and there's only one authority on that, it was like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. The prequels don't really exist to me anymore. Not the way they looked visually at least. The images I had in my mind's eye of the Jedi and the Clone Wars were (and are) a thousand times better than anything Doug Chiang drew. So I just ignore them.

Obviously the same goes for the Disney Trilogy times a million. It's rancid, week old elephant dung. It doesn't exist to me, it never did, and never will. My own ideas of what Luke, Han, and Leia did after ROTJ are infinitely better.

The Mandalorian works for me on every level. I dig it. So far it's canon in my mind until it contradicts itself with something I don't like.

OK, the point of my ramble.....free yourself from the constraints of what some corporate entity is telling you is canon and established continuity. Just make your own based on the movies and media you love. You'll feel a lot happier, and the anger that this garbage has instilled in a lot of can just dissipate. Cause it's nothing. It's fan fiction written by people that have less right to tell stories about these characters than WE do. WE are the longtime fans. These are OUR characters. It's up to each of us individually to decide what happened after ROTJ. Or hell...if you didn't even like ROTJ....go all the way back to Star Wars and start your own story there.

I can agree with this and I see you agreed with me a bit too with the ?rules in our world? line and how PT blended it together, you had some expectations going in. Regardless, canon is what you make it. A corporate entity can?t dictate it to you, nor anyone else.

Arguing with PT apologists will go nowhere. They were most likely children when they saw those movies, so the very thing they rag on OT fans about - seeing things with their rose tinted glasses - is the exact same thing they are doing (the irony of this entire situation seems be completely lost on them.) Right down to hating the ST and swearing that nothing can be worse. They have no idea about that, other than reading some things, because they were children but now they are adults and think that the level of ST hate is unparalleled. Believe me, us OT fans blasted the PT at the same level that the ST is getting now.

My girlfriend's nephews; who are 12 and 10 respectively, love the ST and so do all their friends. Because they are children and live in their own world, they are not hearing about the levels of hate being spewed in places like this - I certainly don't tell them they are wrong for liking what they like. There will be a new generation that will rag on these ST haters in the same way that the children of the PT rag on the OT fans.

I suppose you can find it interesting that there are generations of fans arguing with each other over the different generations of the Skywalker/Palpatine families.

You are pretty much telling PT fans they are wrong for calling them apologists. Ironic.

Very true us OT old farts did create the term Lucas raped our childhood which ironically is what lead to Lucas hating SW saying it was only ever meant for 12 year olds and then selling it to Disney and here we are lol


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Pretty much. If only PT fans were louder and OT fans more reasonable, the ST never would have been created by Disney. Edit: And to be fair, if they were better movies too.

I think there's some truth to both sides of the PT debate here. Yes, the PT movies take more criticism than they should because they get compared to the OT films. But, no, that doesn't mean that the PT movies are good movies on their own (even if you'd never seen the OT).

Liking the PT movies is perfectly fine (and there are lots of crappy movies that I enjoy too). But liking something in terms of being entertained by it does *not* make it high quality art. For a film to be considered good (or great), it needs to meet certain standards that have been set throughout the history of the medium.

To argue that any of the PT movies are good films, you have to be able to say that it holds up to other good films in several of the categories by which we judge cinema. Those categories include acting, dialogue, cinematography, pacing, narrative structure, thematic value, visual effects, sound effects, score, etc.

Where the PT shines are things like score and sound effects. Those are as good as any film ever made in the same genre. But to suggest that the PT can hold their own against the good/great genre films in the other categories is something that'd be hard for me to believe as a genuine argument being made with any intellectual honesty.

Again: *liking* a not-so-great movie is absolutely fine; but claiming that same movie to be objectively "good" or "great" should require a credible argument that it holds up to the standards set by other good/great films. If you legitimately think the PT does that, fine (I guess ); but trying to pretend that others can't point to areas where it fundamentally fails to meet several cinematic standards for excellence is just willfully ignorant, IMO.

I?m not trying to do that. PT has issues. But, ROTS scored the same or a bit higher than ROTJ. Take out the Romance in AOTC, and I imagine it does as well. There is a ?intellectual honesty? to say the PT is as good as the worse of the OT.

 

[jye4ever]

Well it's about damn time, lol. You are so never gonna watch the SE's again now.

I was never a fan of Harmy because of the patch work but with 4K77 at least it was mostly from a full theatrical print.

Sure still not as good as from a negative but still better than Harmy patch work.

It is time.

Mine are on their way from the UK as we speak. And for those that frown on me purchasing...sorry, I don't have the equipment or patience to download for free and burn my own. I am not a hater of the Special Editions, but it's been a very long time since I saw the originals. Very excited!

I don?t know about you but I have been buying SW related products ever since my first job and that does not even include what my parents bought for me as a child.

So if I want to buy THREE pirated fan alterations of movies I have already purchased multiple times thru officially licensed channels then i?m doing it with zero feelings of guilt especially since I will rebuy them again once studio released!

Do it.

 

[Prime Clone]

Liking the PT movies is perfectly fine (and there are lots of crappy movies that I enjoy too). But liking something in terms of being entertained by it does *not* make it high quality art.

Isn't being entertained enough? Expecting ANY Star Wars movie to be high art is the first mistake. They are, and always were, simple popcorn entertainment (with the option to get more deeply involved if you wanted to).

The PT was Lucas unchained and he amped up the Flash Gordon/B-movie/cliffhanger serial aspect.

 

[Khev]

I was never a fan of Harmy because of the patch work but with 4K77 at least it was mostly from a full theatrical print.

Sure still not as good as from a negative but still better than Harmy patch work.

It is time.

You watched the Harmy versions then?

 

[a-dev]

Get yourself an avatar Ducky, with multi-quote responses like that it seems like you should fit right in here and I don't mean that as a jab.



As to your post, honestly, I don't really want to go into this too much. It's a dead horse that's been truly, savagely beaten quite enough over the years and I don't think one side ever persuades the other so all I'm going to do is point to one piece of disagreement I have - not about the ST - I definitely agree about those. It sounds like you're not a fan and neither am I. I guess I'm just not a fan of 3 more films than you are.

You don?t have to love anything, but the PT was doomed from the start because of those expectations and hype. ROTS proves my point. It was a good movie. Critically, as good or better than ROTJ, Yet, some relentlessly bash it and say literally everything is bad about it. When, that clearly isn?t the case.

ST hate is also entitlement based, I?m guilty of it myself. We all had a version of Luke that we wanted, be it from the EU or your mind, and when we didn?t get that, a bunch of us were mad. When they fundamentally shifted every single OT character from what we thought they should be, we got mad because we didn?t what we wanted.

Now, the difference between PT and ST hate, is the difference in entitlement. PT hate is ?unfounded.? There was nothing to measure what or who Qui-Gon Jinn was or Anakin Skywalker or how the Empire collapsed. No stories explaining what happened, no character growth destroyed or regressed. It was a clean slate.

ST hate has some reasonable entitlement to it. Some grew up with the EU. We knew what the heroes would become. We saw them grow as characters into who they were by the end of ROTJ. Luke from farm boy to Jedi. Han from selfish smuggler to caring heroic general. Leia from somewhat cold imperial senator to a lovable rebel leader. The ST fundamentally changed and regressed every one of these characters. Luke?s love, courage, and hope? Gone. A failure, a coward, who lost hope. Han?s newfound selfishness and heroic general? Gone. Turned into a selfish failed drunk. Leia?s leadership? Gone, as she watched the Republic she saved turn to dust with pretty much no one willing to help her. Failed mother and Jedi too.

What is so fundamentally shifted in the PT to the level of this? A backstory to Vader? Vader is still Vader in the OT. Yoda using a lightsaber? Yoda was still Yoda in the PT, he just used a lightsaber. The Force? The Force was still the same, still a energy field that binds the galaxy together, all the PT did was give a way to measure it. Still mysterious! But in an advanced galaxy far far away, of course they found a way to identify force sensitives. Doesn?t take away from the OT.

But the ST? Yeah, seeing how everything the OT heroes went through be meaningless, that takes away a whole lot more.

Was it entitlement to expect the prequels to line up with the references to that era contained in the OT? Almost the entirety of Obi-wan's dialogue to Luke and that of Uncle Owen in ANH is completely ignored by the PT. There was a lot of implied drama behind much of what those characters told us about the Clone Wars and Anakin and none of it happened on screen - let alone the very good acting subtleties from Alec Guinness and Phil Brown in their respective scenes that hinted at so much potential - but the dialogue - virtually none of it borne out by the prequel movies themselves and I think it's a cop-out at best just to say that it was all lies/made-up by Obi-Wan and Uncle Owen.

Heck Owen knew Anakin for probably less than a day in AOTC and never saw him again as far as the films are concerned. He doesn't even meet Obi-wan till the last scene of ROTS. I don't think it was unreasonable to expect that the movies (as opposed to EU books/comics etc) would elaborate on this stuff. So I don't agree about your unfounded entitlement point.

And that's to say nothing about how unconvincing the core relationships and character developments were in the prequels which is their primary failing for anyone who dislikes those movies - namely Anakin and Obi-wan's friendship, Anakin's love story with Padme and his fall to the dark side. It was difficult if not impossible for us to buy these vital elements due to terrible scriptwriting, no scriptwriting (i.e stuff that was just left off screen/ meant to be taken for granted) and godawful acting (yes, worse than almost anything in the OT - but we'll probably just have to agree to disagree on that)

I?m not trying to do that. PT has issues. But, ROTS scored the same or a bit higher than ROTJ. Take out the Romance in AOTC, and I imagine it does as well. There is a ?intellectual honesty? to say the PT is as good as the worse of the OT.

Well, I happen to think ROTS is the worst of the prequels. You heard that right, of those films I put Phantom Menace on top - best visuals, best score, best actor (Neeson), best villain (Maul).

 

[TaliBane]

It?s not made up whatsoever. You admitted to it too by wanting it to look like the OT effects I never said your opinion isn?t valid, but to say people DIDN?T have backstories to what happened, when there are those in this thread who admitted to doing just that, is 100% wrong. Part of the PT hate does indeed stem from not getting what audiences wanted and being compared to the OT, these points amplified the hate and issues with the movies. It wasn?t meant to absolve PT criticism, but to explain why it is so fierce. Objectively speaking, they aren?t awful movies. They have their issues, but the way you take about them is like they are as bad as Freddy Got Fingered.

Let's just say it's a situation of The OT Got Fingered. First in the early 2000's by an emotionally constipated neckbeard who never left his parent's basement, and again in the late 2010s by a snarky libtard who never had an original thought. But... it's still around, recently de-specialized and doing just fine.

 

[ironwez20]

Pretty much

RLM remains king of PT annihilation lol


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Nah. A bunch of old farts whining about how a franchise isn?t like the 70s movies. Not picking at its finest. The mere definition old grouch

 

[jye4ever]

You watched the Harmy versions then?

Nope lol

Not because I didn?t respect his work not at all he should be commended for his dedication but I just never bought into his method of restoration.

4K77 from the start always had the right idea even if that idea came with their own set of inherent flaws but I found those flaws to be much more acceptable in structure.

Link please lol


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[jye4ever]

Nah. A bunch of old farts whining about how a franchise isn?t like the 70s movies. Not picking at its finest. The mere definition old grouch

C?mon now those RLM PT reviews are so freaking legendary now they might as well be the modern incarnations of the holy grail , excalibur and the ark of the covenant lol


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[Khev]

I sent you a PM like two hours ago, lol.

 

[jye4ever]

I sent you a PM like two hours ago, lol.

lol sorry i?m out drinking right now celebrating my decision to cut back on the drinking.


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[Khev]

 

[ironwez20]

edit.....

 

[ironwez20]

C?mon now those RLM PT reviews are so freaking legendary now they might as well be the modern incarnations of the holy grail , excalibur and the ark of the covenant lol


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I mean yea...... if your an ot purist who hates change lol

 

[heon123]

You don't have to be an OT purist to recognise flaws in the prequels.

 

[ajp4mgs]

Isn't being entertained enough? Expecting ANY Star Wars movie to be high art is the first mistake. They are, and always were, simple popcorn entertainment (with the option to get more deeply involved if you wanted to).

The PT was Lucas unchained and he amped up the Flash Gordon/B-movie/cliffhanger serial aspect.

Your use of the term "high art" is dubious, though. Filmmaking in itself is art, and can indeed produce high quality without having to conform to a "high art" classification. Just because Star Wars takes place in a sci-fi/fantasy backdrop with Flash Gordon serials inspiration doesn't mean that the movies need to be nothing more than "popcorn entertainment." The way I see it, ANH and ESB proved that right from the outset.

A movie like LOTR: The Return of the King won best picture while also being fantasy genre. And Wizard of Oz is widely recognized as one of the greatest films of all time despite having a fantasy/whimsy element arguably beyond anything in a SW movie. Subject matter and genre doesn't preclude a film from being high quality art, even when compared to "high art" films.

So yeah, simply being entertaining can be considered "good enough" if that's your own personal bar that you set. But I don't see why that should be the universal bar for SW. Why not have higher expectations based on what we got in the OT? And why pretend that the PT filmmaking couldn't have been just as good? I'm sure that Transformers movies are entertaining to some people too, but would you call those "good movies?"

Nothing about the nature of Star Wars prevents it from having well-told stories with compelling narratives, strong thematic relevancy, great acting performances, good dialogue, awesome visuals, *and* be entertaining. Is it easy to do? No, of course not. But should failing to do so be excusable because these are nothing more than "popcorn entertainment?" Not in my book; I'd prefer to hold SW movies to a higher standard than that. Isn't that a big part of what made (and *kept*) SW special in the first place?

 

[greedo737]

I sent you a PM like two hours ago, lol.

Can I get that link too please?

 

[Prime Clone]

Why not have higher expectations based on what we got in the OT?

Most of us, whether PT or ST apologists or both (like me), will agree the OT was the pinnacle. But not even the OT approached high art, er "quality cinema" (just ask the academy). It's always been space opera, simple cliffhanger adventure pulp. I'm sure a lot of our positive regard for it is unconditional, clouded by nostalgia.

LOTR, even though I prefer SW, is on a level above because it has a rich literature on which to draw. Obviously also the acting, directing and arguably the FX were better.

ROTJ was the low point of the OT, and as opined earlier, it can be argued the PT approached or even equalled that (in the case of ROTS at least).

 

[TaliBane]

Most of us, whether PT or ST apologists or both (like me), will agree the OT was the pinnacle. But not even the OT approached high art, er "quality cinema" (just ask the academy). It's always been space opera, simple cliffhanger adventure pulp. I'm sure a lot of our positive regard for it is unconditional, clouded by nostalgia.

LOTR, even though I prefer SW, is on a level above because it has a rich literature on which to draw. Obviously also the acting, directing and arguably the FX were better.

ROTJ was the low point of the OT, and as opined earlier, it can be argued the PT approached or even equalled that (in the case of ROTS at least).

WHAT?! This is getting silly now.

The American Film Institute consistently has Star Wars/ANH within the top 15 in its list of 100 greatest films of all time (always topped by Citizen Kane,) SW music score always at #1, and has two SW characters (Han and Ben from ANH) in the top 50 top film characters ever created. ANH was also nominated for 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture (at a time when that really meant something.)

And as for whether the acclaim for the OT is solely about ANH (and yes, these are two different polls nearly five years apart, not the same one in two different articles)...

LOTR, even though I prefer SW, is on a level above because it has a rich literature on which to draw.

What does that even mean though? Because something is based on a book, it's inherently better?

 

[ironwez20]

You don't have to be an OT purist to recognise flaws in the prequels.

No you don?t. But to whine and complain like a baby about them cause they are different from what you view Star Wars to be is annoying. It tried something new. It didn?t crap on characters like the ST did or retread old crap.