Prime Clone
Super Freak
True, RO is a solid film but most of the gushing praise would be fed by its similarities to ANH.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (12/18/15)
- Thread starter Khev
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True, RO is a solid film but most of the gushing praise would be fed by its similarities to ANH.
Lejuan
Super Freak
If anything I think most of the criticism of TFA is because of its similarities to ANH, while RO has so far been received as a refreshing addition to the franchise, no?
Prime Clone
Super Freak
I think the difference is, TFA is a thinly veiled retread of ANH while RO is more an adjunct to it.
Lejuan
Super Freak
Yeh, the retread aspect of TFA bothers me the more I think about it. I can just picture them in the TFA writing room, laying out pretty much scene-for-scene the ANH plot and somehow nobody picking up on it. "Great story, people, it's new. It's exciting. It's innovative - something the fans won't have seen before"
Maybe I'll be more critical of RO as time goes. Apart from the third act, the part I really enjoyed was when it became apparent that the ending was butting up against the beginning of ANH (like KitFisto I went into this story cold and had no idea at all what to expect). So maybe you're right - it tied into ANH without being a blatant story rip-off.
Red letter media Was wrong about that in their review of rogue one because then star wars wouldnt have such a giant franchise based on games and books and comics and novels and all of that. Cannon or not there is a lot of side stories that pushed and developed this universe
cmiller99
Super Freak
Then how do you explain people saying "I didn't like the movie because it doesn't feel like Star Wars" or "TFA is just ANH lite"?
I don't agree with their opinions on the movie, I think that Rogue One is actually a good example of how to expand the universe, but it is directly centred around events described and hinted at in the original Star Wars, it's not a new story at all. I think that a KOTOR movie would be a risk with general audiences, for example. I think there's a reason that the announced anthology movies are all based around characters we already know, and the most popular fan choice for an anthology movie (Obi-Wan) is just another elaboration on the pre-existing world. TFA probably only worked for so many people because the new characters were balanced with the old.
I haven't read/played etc virtually any EU material.
You make a great point here. I know that I have a pretty specific idea in mind for what would make a truly memorable and great Star Wars continuation. The general approach they're taking here won't allow for it. But I'm not the primary, target audience, and if they did try to appeal to me specifically, they would put off more people than they would attract probably.
Lucas tried something a bit different in approach with the prequels and they failed critically, across the board. Abrams, Kennedy et al. are hitting every nostalgia button they can, and are succeeding commercially and critically because of it. I think they really are making the best choice, all things considered, with the current approach. If I were producer, I would be doing the same thing, while also recognizing that I was placing a ceiling on what could be achieved artistically.
Yeah, those cosplayers are weird. They're like furries but without the sex.
The force awakens does have the same plot points as a new hope... it isnt because force awakens is takes place in this universe. They literally copy or follow plot points from a new hope.
Rogue one is centered around events of previews movies but we got to see brand new characters. The blind guy showed us a newside of the force. Showed us faith.
Force awakens didnt need to follow a new hope so much but that was just disney doing a soft reboot and playing it safe.
Its like, just because they didnt expand with force awakens it doesnt mean they cant
Lejuan
Super Freak
That's the rock and a hard place problem with Star Wars as I see it. Gen Xers saw it as kids in the 70s. We're the target audience. Oops, but it's kind of a young person's movie at heart - so 6-through-to-teens-through-to-young adults is also the target audience.
The story has to be simple enough for kids to get it, but told in a sophisticated enough way to appeal to the older fans. It's also a nerd's movie in terms of its extensive universe - but the trilogy movies were released so far apart from one another that only the really committed can reasonably pull all the story threads together.
jye4ever
Broke and happy
Thinly veiled...?
Like a sledge hammer.
Last year Khev presented a pretty compelling case on how TFA also broke new narrative ground within the context of the established SW universe.
Every retread was followed with an element that was unique to TFA.
Just ask him why don't you Mr. sledge hammer head.
cmiller99
Super Freak
And the same to you - great post. They did give us new characters in Rogue One but they also set it in a very familiar place - the height of the Empire, essentially, which is what most of ANH is set in. True, new sides of the force were shown to us, but also while Disney pushed every nostalgia button on their control board. Vader, Tarkin, Leia, Red and Gold Leaders, Evazan and Ponda Baba, X-Wings, Y-wings, TIE fighters, Star Destroyers... by the very nature of the setting, the movie isn't entirely new. Which is exactly what they're going for, like what Karamazov said.
You're right, just because they didn't go off in a new direction with TFA doesn't mean they can't, but will they? I don't think so. Their slate suggests no. I think they'll keep doing what makes them over a billion at the box office.
Yep - they have to cater to a middle ground and their answer to that so far is nostalgia. At least the movies have been good at the same time.
I don't buy into the "nostalgia button" narrative. LFL is simply giving people the Star Wars that they never wanted to see go away. If you like playing a sport you enjoyed as a child, as a teenager, and as a young adult, are you clinging to nostalgia? No, you're simply doing something you like to do. Same with any other event or experience that people enjoy over the decades.
Did people love ROTJ in 1983 because of "nostalgia?" That's why we were into Vader and the space battle and Han and Luke and Leia? No, it's just what we were into *period.* It had nothing to do with clinging to the past (all six years of it.) And for millions of people that interest never faded and Disney simply recognized that Lucas went *way* off the rails and is simply righting the ship. Rogue One would have been great in 1986, 1996, and yes 2016.
Did people love ROTJ in 1983 because of "nostalgia?" That's why we were into Vader and the space battle and Han and Luke and Leia? No, it's just what we were into *period.* It had nothing to do with clinging to the past (all six years of it.) And for millions of people that interest never faded and Disney simply recognized that Lucas went *way* off the rails and is simply righting the ship. Rogue One would have been great in 1986, 1996, and yes 2016.
