a nice diversity of planets, very visual, great music composed by John Williams ( again), a great battle ...there a couple of things that I don't understand ( the role of Syfo-Dyas) or a little bit annoying like the"flying pear" at lunch but still a good star wars movie.
sharetruth be told
shareYeah, it is pretty good, an 8/10 for me.
shareI agree. Tpm was weak but Aotc and Rots were both solid films....Rots is my all time favorite Star Wars.
shareI like "AotC" and "RotS", but that's a different thing than saying they're good movies.
There's a world of difference between enjoyable and good.
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Exactly this. Why does it seem to be such a difficult concept. Just because you like something does not mean it is good. It is okay to enjoy something that is of bad quality but the effort they make is to try to change reality so that their subjective opinion has to be accepted as objective truth.
The TFA defenders are notorious for this. TFA is a bad movie by any objective standard (writing, world building, pacing, acting, music, etc all utter garbage) ; but you can make the argument that it was an enjoyably bad film (it was aesthetically and visually pleasing, and the characters are 'likeable' though I argue that it is manipulative superficial likable). JJ is a hack writer and I think a shit director for the camera work and pacing but he knows how to put frames together and recreate visuals and aesthetics, give the devil his due.
I will not ever say people are not 'allowed' to enjoy it. I can even see how people enjoyed it. But I will not accept that it is not a bad film when they are incapable of making arguments without use of sophistry when confronted with the very legitimate criticisms of the film.
The heck is wrong with TFA's pacing? I think the pacing and editing on that film are fine; they keep the adventure moving nicely. You're right: the writing is too copycat to rise above bland (although, I have seen FAR worse scripts...like the Prequels, for instance), but I don't think all the elements you're describing as "bad" fall into that camp.
The music doesn't reinvent the wheel, but...it's John Williams.
The writing and performances aren't special, but "utter garbage"?
TFA is, I think, an example of the sum of the parts being far less than the whole. Nothing's really "broken" on it, but the whole thing as an aggregate is lackluster and kinda bland. It should be better, but it's not. It's a fun enough romp - you can eat popcorn to it - but other than that, it's just..."there".
But utter garbage?
"The heck is wrong with TFA's pacing"
It is too slow and pointless when on Jakuu and the slow pacing does not serve any world buidling whatsoever; so it is just self indulging the "look how lonely Rey is" idea. Then once they get on the Falcon it is neck break speed for the remainder of the film; also no world building being done; just desperate pacing to get to the next action scene. To get the full scope of what I am talking about would require a much more thorough break down; and MauLer is already doing it better than I could. It is also too much of a copy paste job but worse in every way; it basically throws the world building of the OT out the window so it can recreate the events a new. That is not a problem if it was a straight up remake but since it was a sequel it is basically garbage plot writing.
"The writing and performances aren't special, but "utter garbage"?"
Yes, they are utter garbage; the writing relies on empty unanswerable mystery boxes in place of plot and world building; at the cost of undermining the story that came before; not only is it not self contained garbage it is garbage that negatively impacts the story it comes from. The performances are mostly bad from Ford and Ridley; and Gleeson. Ford phoned it in; Daisy can't emote to save her life (and her body language and facial expressions are all wrong) and she is unconvincing in action choreography delivery (which is a big problem because hers was a very action orientated role), Gleeson hammed it up the whole time. Fisher was already almost a corpse and it showed in her delivery.
Boyega, Driver, and Isaacs were...fine... I guess; but there was many things very wrong with the writing of these characters; but that was not on the actors' performance.
TFA is utter garbage in terms of writing and world building; it is so reliant on the next film to 'fix' the plot holes that it ended up trashing the potential of the sequel trilogy. People are still blaming TLJ wrongly
I think the pacing was fine, but I see where you're coming from a little better now.
Mystery boxes are a problem, and I agree that the retread is boring. Maybe it's just semantics, but my standard for "utter garbage" writing would have to have one-dimensional characters (Rey's a clunker, but Finn has such (unfulfilled) promise as a chicken - I'm a sucker for coward characters, and Poe's fun, if a little archetypical, and Kylo Ren: Emo Villain is also kinda fresh and fun). Utter garbage would have to have wall-to-wall bad dialogue (it doesn't, Finn and Poe have reasonably good banter, Han's got some nice lines, etc.). Utter garbage would, for my standards, also have to have an incomprehensible plot with no payoffs, and that also isn't true. Mystery boxes are a problem, but that's the trilogy as a whole, and this movie does promise things and fulfill those promises in most instances. Plot threads aren't started and randomly stopped. Scenes follow each other properly, characters have clear motives, etc.
Don't get me wrong: I don't really want to "defend" TFA as a good movie, but I think utter garbage is pushing it too far.
And I'll stand by the music. There's no way Williams' score qualifies as utter garbage.
The neck break pacing to distract from the lack of plot and world building is a pretty serious flaw.
I am not sure if I want to spend the time to split hairs on what constitutes "utter garbage" but there is so much wrong with TFA, even the things that you say were 'okay' are actually not if you think about them. Anything it gets right is so much outweighed by what it gets wrong; that "utter garbage" is an appropriate label.
"ould have to have one-dimensional characters" They are 1 dimensional
"Rey's a clunker" There is almost nothing redeeming about the quality of Rey as a character; Mary Sue is not even a justified enough title for how garbage and plot bending the character is.
Finn had potential for about the first 5 minutes but then his behavior throughout a majority of this film does not at all match his backstory as a 'child soldier' he acts more like a clumsy highschooler.
Poe is almost a non entity with the way they kill him off but then randomly bring him back.
Kylo: Emo villain with 'seduced by the light' idea was always stupid. and he is inconsistant and not a intimating threat. And he is kind of stupid and bad at his job (see MauLer's videos for more in depth explanation).
The few good bits of dialogue between the characters (there are a few good exchanges between Rey and Finn and Finn and Poe) does not make up for the rest of the crappy dialogue. So on the nose and bad ("Gotta boyfriend, cute boyfriend?" "In the Hands of your father, HANNNN SOLLLOO") so much of it was terrible and designed as if it was speaking TO the audience rather than organic exchanges between characters. The dialogue, as I see it, is actually worse than the prequels (though clunky dialogue it had, it was not meta spoken for the audience's benefit type of dialogue).
The mystery boxes in place of world building is the Achilles's heal of the trilogy. The mystery boxes stud in place of plot development and world building at the cost of setting up a continuation.
Ran out of space; I can keep going but that is a lot of typing and reading; if you want I can keep going on more details but this might turn into a book length if I do that. I would give MauLer a run for his money on some of this stuff. "Utter garbage" I think is appropriate because of how bad the writing is of the film and it even comes at the cost of undermining the OT's characters, plots and world building; all with the goal of remaking and rehashing the events while being a continuation; and yet setting up bad world building, not developing the plot and kicking the can down the road in terms of character development of the new characters.
"Plot threads aren't started and randomly stopped. "
Um, the hunt for BB-8 is dropped, the hunt for Luke is dropped for star killer and then randomly started again, the focus of the film shifts to being all about Rey and Kylo for most of the climax. Yes plot threads are started and randomly stopped and then some restarted again in the last few minutes. Sorry to say, but you are just wrong on this one.
" There's no way Williams' score qualifies as utter garbage."
I love Williams, even his prequel stuff was great; but here he phoned it in even worse than Harrison Ford's performance.
Ep II was better than I was expecting.
shareI disagree. This felt like it had no plot and was only a visualization of CGI effects from start to end. Not even Christopher Lee starring saves it. Say what you will about The Phantom Menace and Jar Jar, but at least it had a story.
shareIndeed but unfortunately this is the case for the PT. So many new & amazing things that were brought to the franchise. The world building & soundtrack alone were amazing. Easily among the most misunderstood & crimimally underappreciated films of all time.
It's a shame that it took Lucas selling to Di$ney for many to see what uninspired, horrendous schlock Star Wars could be turned into.
1 and 2 suck. Simple as that. 3 was a decent film though.
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