Most Accurate Review *Spoilers*
Jan 30, 2018 16:30:04 GMT
kleinreturns, audiosane, and 4 more like this
Post by ryboto on Jan 30, 2018 16:30:04 GMT
Found a good user review on RT-
The most disturbing issue with this film is that it was made by "professionals" - some people actually and seriously tried to make a good film, got a lot of money doing that, spend lot of money doing that, and did not realize how bad it is/was. How is this sort of mess possible?? I don't get how the scenes and plot ever could be made out of first brainstorming sessions, not even to mention of pre-production and post-production phases, is this the best the creative minds in Hollywood can deliver these days..
I agree more or less with most of the faults elaborated by other reviewers, so I will try complement the existing reviews with one less mentioned critique of why TLJ is a terrible movie, and in general why the new trilogy is failing under the new leadership of Lucasfilm/Disney. This review is more for me as reflective experience as one who grew up with Star Wars and who is devastated how bad the saga is treated by current leadership of Lucasfilm. Hence, I signed up for RT just to give my contribution about these new Disney "Star Wars" films.
To put it simple, my reason is that the writers and producers of the new trilogy ignore the context - society, history - in their storytelling (both implicitly and explicitly).
What I mean by this is that you need the Star Wars universe, even though fictional, to have certain rules and structure that makes it feel real to the audience, something we can understand and relate to. Furthermore, Star Wars comes with legacy (history), and to continue the story you have to start with the paths already established. I think George Lucas gets this and new executive producers do not, and it is rooted in understanding something timeless about how societies functions in the real world, and failure to bring some of this contextual realism in the story.
This lack of contextual understanding and realism combined with failure to connect the "story" of episodes 7 and 8 to SW saga history is why this new trilogy feels empty - you need this context in order to build meaningful characters development and storylines, the context makes their motives and struggle feel real to audience, and they also then feel vulnerable as they are bounded by the rules. This is exactly the reason why you can't have fictional characters being good at everything or use too much deus ex machina to solve the problems faced by the fictional characters. Consequently, the context does not automatically translate to a good story, but a good story needs meaningful context (implicit and/or explicit in the story).
So, here are some details to justify my arguments (for those who are interested):
History:
The new trilogy has a wrong beginning point: So, let me get this straight, the over 1000-year-old republic consisting of thousands of systems was turned into a galactic empire by Sith Lord Palpatine and most powerful force user ever, Anakin Skywalker, and eventually liberated by Rebels and Luke Skywalker, the son of Anakin (ROTJ). After defeating the empire and emperor Palpatine (ROTJ), you would think that the rebel alliance (i.e. alliance of forces and star systems against the power of the galactic empire) would form some sort of new union ('new republic'; as they were "rebelling" against Palpatine and Sith-rule that caused the demise of the old one), and that this new republic would make sure that the remnants of the empire do not grow strong enough or are defeated. Something like this was done for instance after second world war (dividing Germany and removing most of their armed forces). Moreover, this new republic should bear the legacy of old republic (1000 years of experience) to some extent, and thus being able to form a formidable union.
But how is that the galaxy in the beginning of The Force Awakens (episode 7) is reduced again to a fight between two opposite forces, resistance and first-order, in which the winners of previous episode (6) are again underdogs? Let's just think of this for a while, how the new republic could let this sort of a new force to rise in the first place (did they not remember why their republic is called new instead of being the old one??). Even the rebel alliance (timeline wise during OT) was aware of Death Stars, when being defendant in that situation, and could mobilize action towards these hreats. And even if we accept the starting point of episode 7, you would think that the forces would be more equally balanced? Where are all the armies of star systems of the new republic? How were the remnants of the empire able to become so strong?
I cannot think any rational storyteller that would just ignore this "contextual development", and start a new episode after episode 6 without giving any answers to this in the movie(s). How do you get from the defeat of the Galactic Empire in episode 6 to the almost same setup in episode 7 (resistance vs. first-order) like nothing that happened in episodes 4-6 mattered? This does not make any sense in story and timeline wise. Each episode of the whole story should matter, history should matter, or they should not be included to the saga, more importantly one episode cannot invalidate the previous ones, because they are called EPISODES of a whole.
Maybe a conflict inside the new republic would have been more interesting contextual starting point than the current films have, such as new republic has problems and new evil force is rising. Actually I think the current films do not have any meaningful development - revealing past events, building current story, and/or creating future expectation - in terms of fictional context, this has been pointed out by many reviewers).
Society:
-What resources, star systems and forces are forming the factions? Why do the new factions exist? Episodes 1-6 build a quite clear trajectory and motivations for the opposite factions to exist, these were rooted to the real development of the fictional context (for example "rebel alliance" was born out of Palpatine's seize of power).Even Palpatine and Anakin, in addition for pure lust of power, had their own (twisted) vision to control the galaxy in order to have peace and order, and rule the galaxy in societal point of view. So, what are the goals of these new factions? How do they relate to the fictional Star Wars universe? More specifically, how do these relate to the new republic or the remnants of empire? Which star systems are controlled by the first-order? Which systems are controlled by the new republic/resistance/rebels? Where are all the non-military leaders of the first-order? This sort of realism is almost completely missing from the parody type figures the first-order military personnel are, and do not indicate why they are fighting and destroying everything. The lack of context makes both first-order and resistance feel like they are fighting in sake of fighting, like video game figures..
-Scale: The SW saga establishes that the old republic had thousands of star systems AND systems that were outside the influence of republic (e.g. Tatooine, remember how Anakin was found). This scale means that the forces and factions in the story have to be depicted according to the scale. For instance, the clone wars as a conflict had multiple battle fronts, and the conflict was ended by insider information hitting the core of the opposite forces (Palpatine ordering Anakin to slaughter the leaders of separatists working for Palpatine). How come in this new trilogy the strongest forces in galaxy are reduced to single chase of fleets or small battle at the end of episode 7? If there would be a thing like Star Killer Base (which was stupid thing to exist in the first place in TFA), you would think that half of the armies in the galaxy would try to destroy this, not couple of x-wings and group of people on the ground as in TFA ending was. Even though if the idea was to mobilize a small-scale commando strike, you would think the storyteller would let us know about the scale in order to bring meaningful context to the story. Even in the OT the rebel forces that were visible in the films were not the only forces, for instance the base on Hoth was only fraction of the rebellion.
-Ruling mechanism and factions (rebels, first-order): Which sort of ruling mechanism the two factions represent? How does the first order control the star systems? In episodes 1-6 the old republic was the "democracy" whereas the galactic empire was more authoritarian and arbitrary. Even the galactic empire was not all powerful, but had to use various mechanism (from senate to regional governors) to control the galaxy (i.e. thousands of star systems). For instance, even in episode IV, when empire was in its strongest, there was hesitance among the leadership of the Empire of how Emperor can control star systems without the senate.
Some details:
-The Star Killer Base (Episode 7): So, Death star I and II required the whole resources and knowhow of empire in order to be constructed, how can remnants of empire construct something things massive without any other force knowing about it and trying to prevent them or construct similar weapons? (remember in real history cold war and arms race between USA and Soviets..). This should not have been in the story at all, Deathstar was only related to the empire and total control of the galaxy after the seize of power (and reference to nuclear war), it does not make sense have this sort of a super weapon when the factions should be more equally balanced, or then both of them should have these weapons..
-How come Finn and Rey do not know what Jedi are in TFA? Or in general, how everybody is so ignorant of the past? If we consider the generations, in time of Anakin Skywalker (around 60y before TFA?) the Jedi were known all over galaxy (remember in episode II even the slave owners know Jedi), and the Jedi Luke Skywalker defeated Sith (around 25-30y before TFA?). It is not possible that Jedi and force, that were thousands of years the central pieces of the galaxy, would have been totally forgotten and become "myth" in one or two generations. It is like in the modern times we would not remember what happened in the 1980's.
PS. The episodes 7 and 8 (and 9) are not canon for me for the reasons mentioned above, as they do not fit to the saga and do not develop the story to any (meaningful) direction.
I agree more or less with most of the faults elaborated by other reviewers, so I will try complement the existing reviews with one less mentioned critique of why TLJ is a terrible movie, and in general why the new trilogy is failing under the new leadership of Lucasfilm/Disney. This review is more for me as reflective experience as one who grew up with Star Wars and who is devastated how bad the saga is treated by current leadership of Lucasfilm. Hence, I signed up for RT just to give my contribution about these new Disney "Star Wars" films.
To put it simple, my reason is that the writers and producers of the new trilogy ignore the context - society, history - in their storytelling (both implicitly and explicitly).
What I mean by this is that you need the Star Wars universe, even though fictional, to have certain rules and structure that makes it feel real to the audience, something we can understand and relate to. Furthermore, Star Wars comes with legacy (history), and to continue the story you have to start with the paths already established. I think George Lucas gets this and new executive producers do not, and it is rooted in understanding something timeless about how societies functions in the real world, and failure to bring some of this contextual realism in the story.
This lack of contextual understanding and realism combined with failure to connect the "story" of episodes 7 and 8 to SW saga history is why this new trilogy feels empty - you need this context in order to build meaningful characters development and storylines, the context makes their motives and struggle feel real to audience, and they also then feel vulnerable as they are bounded by the rules. This is exactly the reason why you can't have fictional characters being good at everything or use too much deus ex machina to solve the problems faced by the fictional characters. Consequently, the context does not automatically translate to a good story, but a good story needs meaningful context (implicit and/or explicit in the story).
So, here are some details to justify my arguments (for those who are interested):
History:
The new trilogy has a wrong beginning point: So, let me get this straight, the over 1000-year-old republic consisting of thousands of systems was turned into a galactic empire by Sith Lord Palpatine and most powerful force user ever, Anakin Skywalker, and eventually liberated by Rebels and Luke Skywalker, the son of Anakin (ROTJ). After defeating the empire and emperor Palpatine (ROTJ), you would think that the rebel alliance (i.e. alliance of forces and star systems against the power of the galactic empire) would form some sort of new union ('new republic'; as they were "rebelling" against Palpatine and Sith-rule that caused the demise of the old one), and that this new republic would make sure that the remnants of the empire do not grow strong enough or are defeated. Something like this was done for instance after second world war (dividing Germany and removing most of their armed forces). Moreover, this new republic should bear the legacy of old republic (1000 years of experience) to some extent, and thus being able to form a formidable union.
But how is that the galaxy in the beginning of The Force Awakens (episode 7) is reduced again to a fight between two opposite forces, resistance and first-order, in which the winners of previous episode (6) are again underdogs? Let's just think of this for a while, how the new republic could let this sort of a new force to rise in the first place (did they not remember why their republic is called new instead of being the old one??). Even the rebel alliance (timeline wise during OT) was aware of Death Stars, when being defendant in that situation, and could mobilize action towards these hreats. And even if we accept the starting point of episode 7, you would think that the forces would be more equally balanced? Where are all the armies of star systems of the new republic? How were the remnants of the empire able to become so strong?
I cannot think any rational storyteller that would just ignore this "contextual development", and start a new episode after episode 6 without giving any answers to this in the movie(s). How do you get from the defeat of the Galactic Empire in episode 6 to the almost same setup in episode 7 (resistance vs. first-order) like nothing that happened in episodes 4-6 mattered? This does not make any sense in story and timeline wise. Each episode of the whole story should matter, history should matter, or they should not be included to the saga, more importantly one episode cannot invalidate the previous ones, because they are called EPISODES of a whole.
Maybe a conflict inside the new republic would have been more interesting contextual starting point than the current films have, such as new republic has problems and new evil force is rising. Actually I think the current films do not have any meaningful development - revealing past events, building current story, and/or creating future expectation - in terms of fictional context, this has been pointed out by many reviewers).
Society:
-What resources, star systems and forces are forming the factions? Why do the new factions exist? Episodes 1-6 build a quite clear trajectory and motivations for the opposite factions to exist, these were rooted to the real development of the fictional context (for example "rebel alliance" was born out of Palpatine's seize of power).Even Palpatine and Anakin, in addition for pure lust of power, had their own (twisted) vision to control the galaxy in order to have peace and order, and rule the galaxy in societal point of view. So, what are the goals of these new factions? How do they relate to the fictional Star Wars universe? More specifically, how do these relate to the new republic or the remnants of empire? Which star systems are controlled by the first-order? Which systems are controlled by the new republic/resistance/rebels? Where are all the non-military leaders of the first-order? This sort of realism is almost completely missing from the parody type figures the first-order military personnel are, and do not indicate why they are fighting and destroying everything. The lack of context makes both first-order and resistance feel like they are fighting in sake of fighting, like video game figures..
-Scale: The SW saga establishes that the old republic had thousands of star systems AND systems that were outside the influence of republic (e.g. Tatooine, remember how Anakin was found). This scale means that the forces and factions in the story have to be depicted according to the scale. For instance, the clone wars as a conflict had multiple battle fronts, and the conflict was ended by insider information hitting the core of the opposite forces (Palpatine ordering Anakin to slaughter the leaders of separatists working for Palpatine). How come in this new trilogy the strongest forces in galaxy are reduced to single chase of fleets or small battle at the end of episode 7? If there would be a thing like Star Killer Base (which was stupid thing to exist in the first place in TFA), you would think that half of the armies in the galaxy would try to destroy this, not couple of x-wings and group of people on the ground as in TFA ending was. Even though if the idea was to mobilize a small-scale commando strike, you would think the storyteller would let us know about the scale in order to bring meaningful context to the story. Even in the OT the rebel forces that were visible in the films were not the only forces, for instance the base on Hoth was only fraction of the rebellion.
-Ruling mechanism and factions (rebels, first-order): Which sort of ruling mechanism the two factions represent? How does the first order control the star systems? In episodes 1-6 the old republic was the "democracy" whereas the galactic empire was more authoritarian and arbitrary. Even the galactic empire was not all powerful, but had to use various mechanism (from senate to regional governors) to control the galaxy (i.e. thousands of star systems). For instance, even in episode IV, when empire was in its strongest, there was hesitance among the leadership of the Empire of how Emperor can control star systems without the senate.
Some details:
-The Star Killer Base (Episode 7): So, Death star I and II required the whole resources and knowhow of empire in order to be constructed, how can remnants of empire construct something things massive without any other force knowing about it and trying to prevent them or construct similar weapons? (remember in real history cold war and arms race between USA and Soviets..). This should not have been in the story at all, Deathstar was only related to the empire and total control of the galaxy after the seize of power (and reference to nuclear war), it does not make sense have this sort of a super weapon when the factions should be more equally balanced, or then both of them should have these weapons..
-How come Finn and Rey do not know what Jedi are in TFA? Or in general, how everybody is so ignorant of the past? If we consider the generations, in time of Anakin Skywalker (around 60y before TFA?) the Jedi were known all over galaxy (remember in episode II even the slave owners know Jedi), and the Jedi Luke Skywalker defeated Sith (around 25-30y before TFA?). It is not possible that Jedi and force, that were thousands of years the central pieces of the galaxy, would have been totally forgotten and become "myth" in one or two generations. It is like in the modern times we would not remember what happened in the 1980's.
PS. The episodes 7 and 8 (and 9) are not canon for me for the reasons mentioned above, as they do not fit to the saga and do not develop the story to any (meaningful) direction.