MovieChat Forums > Keith4832 > Replies
Keith4832's Replies
Yeah, the basic storylines retweeked are not that good. What the actors do with material can be good though. I'm going to attribute what I see as the good parts of the new franchise down to actual creativity as well as allowing the traditional components time to shine. These are:
- The Millennium Falcon looks good and is indispensible in the movies
- BB8 - partially pandering to "a new generation needs a new droid" ethic, but otherwise fun to have in the films
- Rey - A reworked Luke and perhaps a little hyped, otherwise a character who knows her worth and is unflappable heroine material (how many complained about the women's lib attitude of young Leia?)
- Jedi island is awesome - isolated, beautiful but also with its own retinue of fun citizens.
- Droids C-3PO and R2D2 still have a part to play in the new generation
- Luke is supposed to be the new Obi-Wan wise teacher but he still has his own relateable easy nature as well. We even see shades of Yoda in Luke. Like Yoda in the swamp Luke has adapted to life on a windswep island.
- Yoda makes a memorable appearance - I have no issue with it. Cutting through the BS, he was.
-----
The new Imperial cast are lacking characters with true charisma. Snoke had something but was really only there as a fulcrum for Kylo's ambition and rage. Everyone is humorless regardless of plot turns that suggest mirth.
Should I have cited a copyright notice next to my comment to prevent Disney expropriating it? ;) In any case, it's unfortunate when a popular brandname is all that is needed to rake in the money from fans. Hell, you can even get a Star Wars electric shaver now. (lol, yeah, I know...)
They reformatted the classic narrative but that reformat is supposed to be the framework upon which their property is meant to gain uniformity and credibility. They want to reproduce predictable fan service product that:
- Appeals to an 8 - 20 years age bracket
- Sells mechandise
- Promotes Disney's concept of a cohesive, benevolent society
Thus, playing the Devil's advocate, I'd further say:
They can't indulge older audiences who may like the older movies without seemingly alienating the millennial crowd who relate to young protagonists; resisting the urge to change stories, add characters and other changes might limit mechandising profiability; and the older movies were chiefly about inidividuals and their moral struggles against a civil war background, but does that serve a social agenda that wants to promote cultural types and gender politics (not that ulimately this matters even the context of the new movie narratives)?
-------------
So, I'm arguing that Disney is a bit stuck. That said, this is what they have been doing for a long time - creating Disney friendly/kid friendly versions of popular stories.
I think Luke made two mistakes:
- Assumed that he had full control of his training temple as his domain
- When the problem with Ben became developed was hamstrung by his ethic of not kiilling or assassinating unarmed people (or killing people he regarded as innocent players)
He realised Snoke had infiltrated Ben's mind but did not face that psychopath at the right time. It's unclear whether he could have stopped Ben when he started on the path of destruction - in a confrontation he may have had to kill him to stop him. Was Snoke devious enough to avoid confrontation with Luke had the latter tried to confront him? Or was Snoke always seeking out Luke to try and kill him?
Yoda: "Fucked up, Yoda not. Brilliant I am. Hee hee."
Yoda: "Yoda give young Luke tip on Force projection."
LOL.
Poor Ackbar, I knew him well.
Master of the space fleet and a good fellow, ;)
This is probably normal for Jedi considering their Force sensitivity. If the Force is the factor in nature that helps sustain nature and matter than an adept in the Force can draw upon the same field energy to produce his/her own matter...even at a distance.
I'm also supposing that Luke has developed to the point that the difference between his physical reality and his spiritual reality as a Jedi is not great...so transitioning from one to the other is achievable and the passage to death for him involves absorption into the Force ghost reality. Maybe exhausting himself physically and mentally to the extent that he did withdrew the natural Force stability holding his body together and hence he dematerialised into the higher Force reality?
Heh heh.
A good story retold never gets boring...or does it?
I agree. Being a fan does not necessarily qualify someone to be a good interpreter of said subject. If a director allows the team to make their contributions without micromanaging the creative tone - let actors invest fully in their performance, respect the original texts and the evident meaning of those scripts, etc.
A new reboot would ruin the franchise structure and the effort to build a brand and a consuming fanbase. It doesn't seem likely that they'll be reformatting the story development.
I'm concerned about Abrams coming back as director - that's something they could change. They need to step away from politicing and social engineering.
Based on the film now released there has been no attempt to explain any foundation story elements besides the relationship between Kylo/Ben and Luke.
I do feel it is a stronger, more interesting film compared to TFA. They tried to make it more charming/buddy adventure oriented, and the action scenes were excellent. TLJ is a more emotionally affecting movie.
It is gory but arguably in a lot of cases to an appropriate degree. It's a medieval style world where demonstrations of ruthless strength are apparently necessary to keep enemies in line or to keep afloat in a struggle for survival against brutal people. Not many people can be trusted in Westeros. Still, I would have been fine without a certain few scenes - I get the picture already that certain people are foul villians/acting vilely without the illustrations. ;)
I haven't seen The Walking Dead and would be happy to avoid it as zombie hordes are not appealing to me. In GoT there are undead hordes but we don't see them that often (so far in the series). As I've said human on human violence can be bloody and chilling, and there are supernatural monsters which play a part in the seemingly gloomy prospects of the people and sometimes these are responsible for violence. I suspect there are appreciably similar levels of violence between the two series, but as to total time spent on gory violence I think GoT is something along the lines of 30-40 percent of screentime. There is a far amount of time spent on dialogue between characters and the number of characters that have been featured at one point or another probably is in the region of 60-70 plus incidental characters. Anyway, I guess I would advise you to watch it and see if it is tolerable. It is entertaining in my view because the characters can be likeable and the action and political drama are good.
Hi StyxNyx, thanks for your welcome! :) Happy to be here among likeminded movie fans.
Hi,
I'm "Keith4832". I posted regularly on the "Vikings", "Person of Interest", and "Game of Thrones" threads on the IMDb boards.
IMDB.com is one of my favourite websites but closing their message boards has robbed me of a nice past-time and a means to engage with others on shared interest in media and narratives.
I think this is a very interesting comment by IMDb:
"The IMDb message boards were disabled on February 20, 2017. This included the Private Message system. IMDb is passionately committed to providing innovative ways for our hundreds of millions of users to engage and communicate with one another. We will continue to enhance our current offerings and launch new features in 2017 and beyond that will help our customers communicate and express themselves in meaningful ways while leveraging emerging technologies and opportunities." [Source: http://m.imdb.com/board/announcement ]
If I could point out a salient feature common to all corporatised organisations which illustrates the core failing in IMDb's assumptions and objectives: The propensity to describe their users as "customers" and if by describing us as such they then must consequently think of as us as being mainly customers. Ask yourself what the role of being a customer is ultimately in the eyes of business: it is to be a resource to extract revenue from in order to create business profit. I am a human individual not a factor in their business aims or a number on a balance sheet of a database - I do not use IMDb as a customer seeking to purchase access or things to consume. I might be consuming information by visiting a website, but I'm not engaging in a transaction for commercial reasons. All this shows is the corporate world imposing their ideology on people who only wish to use a website in an informal way for non-business activities and personal interest.
I think we'll now have a chance to interact in a more honest and respectful environment on this website.
MovieChat board for Vikings can be found here: http://www.moviechat.org/movies/tt2306299