Star Wars: The Last Jedi

[Griffith]

Two years from now, you'll be defending Rogue One and wondering how the hell you got there.

Nah, I did hate TFA upon first viewing, I nitpicked every moment and physically rejected it like a foreign body. I had the opportunity to watch it again in a completely different setting shortly thereafter though, with all those expectations gone, and was able to just sit back and enjoy it and everything it did right by Star Wars, which was quite a lot.

I did not have this experience after multiple viewings of Rogue One, which had some neat stuff in it, but not the same stakes, purpose, or overall quality as TFA, which I think doubled as a better tribute to the original Star Wars too.

Movies have been "considered good" while they absolutely sucked. It all depends on who's considering. If you want my opinion, then I think this movie has some good stuff in it, but I don't think it's firmly good as a whole. And that's because the good stuff is weighed down by the bad one. I think it's alright if you like Star Wars, but that's about it. I'd put it on the same level as Avengers 2.

Sure lots of sucky movies are hits, but I'm talking about this movie and it didn't suck and my point is acting like it does despite its strengths, especially for showing love to its source, is perplexing to me. As you say it depends on your criteria, but it was probably one of the best films of its kind produced that year, and probably better than alright if one DOESN'T care about Star Wars but just judges it as a movie-going experience. Basically, it could stand on its own as an action adventure movie but it obviously has plenty of "Star Wars" shit in it that clouds our judgement (to be continued...). So, it's just weird to me when it's cited by some fans as the reason the next Star Wars is doomed.

Remix/reboot/remake, whatever. It's derivative and not in a good way as far as I'm concerned. And that's because I personally care about the plot, and I think the plot sucks. I think STARKILLER BASE is a fucking joke, and I find the idea of a Death Star XTREEM EDITION almost insulting. The mysterious evil leader looks like a giant from RE4, the Han Solo ship escape scene is corny as hell, the political stuff is paper-thin, the resistance's struggle has zero gravitas to it, some side characters take up screen time uselessly, Leia can't articulate, Rey's prowess in all things lacks subtlety, etc. Like I said, there's some parts I like, but that doesn't erase the parts I don't like. I think the movie could have been vastly improved by having better writing and tighter editing.

Well, what couldn't? =) Though I think it's incredibly tight and well-paced for all the masters they're serving and the sheer amount of shit they shove in it, it takes time to have a moment when it needs to but really moves briskly otherwise (Avengers 2 is a good counter-example). The worst parts are indeed Death Star 3 and Snoke (the name alone), and we could cherry pick good or bad parts all day (though I do think the good overwhelmingly outweighs the bad if you want to pro/con the whole movie with me!? =), but I think a lot of the weak points are so because they're Star Wars window dressing and aren't as important as the characters, their arcs, and the groundwork laid while delivering a rousing return to form (YMMV). That's the emotional core of the movie and why it ultimately works, and you don't need a brilliant plot to tell a good story that way, as the original Star Wars films, including Empire's extended chase scene/training montage plot, can attest.

Sounds to me like you're just saying the bad parts, which are non-trivial, should be dismissed because it's the Star Wars franchise.

That's the heart of the matter to me; how we're putting our finger on the scale one way or another. It's too Star Wars or not enough, lives up to it or doesn't, is somehow disqualified, unworthy or isn't. Honestly, I wouldn't have ever seen this movie or cared about space teens again if it wasn't "Star Wars," but I also wouldn't be over-scrutinizing it either, and I think that's true of many of us. It's almost impossible to separate really, which is why I'm parsing it from multiple angles, from what's purely on screen, to the whole aim of the production.

I have no shame saying I liked the parts I did. I just don't think they overwhelmingly outweigh the parts I didn't like. To be honest this is the first time I think back on this movie since having watched it, which is in itself revelatory of its (lack of) impact on me.

Well, what movies have such an impact on you these days? Not many for me. It's the same quandary; is it the movie's fault, or us? <-That's us.

Anyway, to put a bow on this, I think it was a good movie on it's own merits, but how it paid tribute to Star Wars (1977) within that framework was in fact great to moi, but I can understand seeing that the opposite way... from a certain point of view.

The first movies I remember watching are the original Star Wars trilogy so the franchise as a whole has a really special place in my heart as it does for others. I have a few problems with the Force Awakens, mainly its lack of actual characters but I did enjoy the movie as a whole. Rogue One kind of gave me hope for how Disney will be handling Star Wars, but the teaser killed most of that. The visual style and content just didn't feel Star Wars to me. There's a certain feeling I've come to expect with Star Wars, it's why anytime I watch A New Hope I get this stupid smile on my face or I'm still mystified by Yoda. This trailer just came across as standard Sci-Fi/Action Blockbuster, I'm very excited for more Luke Skywalker, and who wouldn't be he's one of the most iconic film characters of all time.

This is what I'm talking about. That sounds all over the map to me, like I agree about that "certain feeling," but largely disagree with your positions on what does and doesn't cut it in the new movies. I'm worried about Luke though, seems like they've turned him into an asshole, which explains his sitting everything out, but his unyielding optimism, heroism, and devotion to his friends were pretty defining character traits to say the least. I don't need to see Rey showing him how to get his groove back or something in a rote self-redemptive arc he didn't need just to get back to where he was 30 years before (and then they kill him off =). Oh no, she's already a better Jedi and hero than Luke!

Going back to the trailer, one potential direction the story could take is that those (I'm assuming Jedi) ancient texts reveal the original Jedi religion/philosophy, showing how corrupt/misguided the Jedi order had become by the time of the prequel trilogy (which was off-handedly/subtly mentioned twice in the PT by Yoda).

It gives them an excuse to correct what I think is Lucas' RotJ big mistake. Lucas wanted Luke to be an old school Jedi just like Obi-Wan and Yoda, but the story laid out by ESB didn't naturally flow there. So he forced the issue with RotJ's Yoda scene, soft retconning ESB's story to allow it.

I fully accept the canon, Luke is a Jedi, but I think a more natural flow would've been to have Luke become a new breed of Force user, one that's close to being like the Jedi (given Luke's incomplete, informal Jedi training) and fights for the same cause but perhaps skirts closer to the dark side than the Jedi would (like Luke did early in RotJ).

The Jedi started out and largely were that way in the OT, with Vader's and Obi-Wan's "religion" being referred to interchangeably. Jedi could have basically just been a synonym for a "force user," with the distinction being between generic light and dark (remember the term Dark Jedi? =). All the super rigid Jedi vs. Sith crap came later, so you're right that it was corrupted, in the script of not in the story. =)

There's a lot of hairsplitting there though, with regards to "retcons" from one sequel to the next. I just don't think it was that complicated until Lucas made it so when he had to depict the Jedi order in the prequels and make up a bunch of specifics that didn't even mesh all that well with what's in the OT (like a lot of the PT). Anyway, it seems that's the direction they're taking Rey, at least I hope so rather than her being the new Chosen One or some shit (BTW, that tome looks like an old Lucas idea...).

[Skeleton]

The Jedi started out and largely were that way in the OT, with Vader's and Obi-Wan's "religion" being referred to interchangeably. Jedi could have basically just been a synonym for a "force user," with the distinction being between generic light and dark (remember the term Dark Jedi? =). All the super rigid Jedi vs. Sith crap came later, so you're right that it was corrupted, in the script of not in the story. =)

I don't entirely agree with you here.  You're right that the lines separating the groups were far blurrier with the original trilogy (especially in ANH where they're almost non-existent, where the "religion" comments were made).  But Yoda, in Empire Strikes Back, firmly establishes that Jedi are Force-users who use the light side of the force ("A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack").  By definition, a dark side-using/dark Jedi is an oxymoron. 

Even in earlier drafts of A New Hope (and the A New Hope novelization) Vader is referred to as the "Dark Lord of the Sith"/"Sith Lord" with "Sith" remaining undefined (and left out of the movies) until Lucas later fleshed it out and put it in The Phantom Menace.  Star Wars fans knew the term for a dark side-using Force wielder (of whatever group Vader was a part of), but only Lucas knew that's what Sith meant.  That's probably the reason why the Expanded Universe writers preferred the clumsy term "dark Jedi" (and it's simple-minded cousin "grey Jedi").

I don't even really care that Luke became a Jedi.  What bothers me (in the slightest sense of the word) is that Lucas reached that conclusion unnaturally just because he wanted the story to go there.  My objectively awesome idea of having Luke be the beginning of a new order is just wishful thinking.  I don't hold it against Lucas for not doing it.  It's just an example of how the story could've flowed more naturally.

I have the same gripe with the prequel trilogy:  Lucas had a specific direction he wanted to take Anakin in since literally the late 70s or early 80s.  He was doing just that with The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, but sometime between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith he decided to make Anakin/Vader a tragic character so he made Anakin's character development take a hard left right into a brick wall.

There's a lot of hairsplitting there though, with regards to "retcons" from one sequel to the next. I just don't think it was that complicated until Lucas made it so when he had to depict the Jedi order in the prequels and make up a bunch of specifics that didn't even mesh all that well with what's in the OT (like a lot of the PT). Anyway, it seems that's the direction they're taking Rey, at least I hope so rather than her being the new Chosen One or some shit (BTW, that tome looks like an old Lucas idea...).

So you've been assaulted by heard of the objectively shitty "Rey is the reincarnated Chosen One" theory too, eh? 

For the record, my objection to how Lucas handled Luke in RotJ stems from what's taught in the OT and interviews/explanations Lucas gave during that time period.  If I use a PT example, I'm doing so from a canon story standpoint only.  I'm not saying what Lucas did in the 80s is wrong because it was different from what we see in the 2000s.

Here's a fun, quick story about the PT:  A year or two ago one of the members here (Johnstantine, I think?) was trying to convince you guys to give The Clone Wars a shot.  I wanted to give it a gentleman's try, but I couldn't get myself to do it because I had a very negative visceral reaction to the prequel trilogy and anything related to it.  Realizing I had this reaction to the material bothered me.  So I decided to write down everything I didn't like about the trilogy, ignoring the obvious things that I could tolerate (terrible acting, script, etc).  Looking at my list I realized the one thing that bothered me the most was that I believed the prequel movies shit all over the backstory that the original trilogy had established.  So, being a man of no life, I watched the original trilogy, writing down every single reference to what happened before A New Hope.  Afterwards I removed everything that was false within the original trilogy (Obi-Wan saying Vader killed Luke's father, for example).  I then watched the prequel trilogy to see if it contradicted what the OT had said.

My findings?  With the exception of one or two very minor differences (Leia says she knew her and Luke's mom before she died, PT has her die during childbirth*), the two lined up perfectly.  The problem?  The prequel trilogy technically sticks to the story established by the OT, but it's a far crappier version than what the OT leads you to believe.  In ANH, Obi-Wan says Luke's father was a great pilot.  That made me think Vader was originally a badass fighter pilot.  In the PT, he's a great pilot in the sense that he's great at piloting podracers and "lucked" into single-handedly destroying a droid control ship before becoming a decent (for a Jedi) fighter pilot.  In ESB, Obi-Wan's Force ghost says Yoda was his teacher.  That made me think Yoda taught Obi-Wan the way Obi-Wan was teaching Luke.  In the PT, Obi-Wan is the student of Jinn, but Yoda is shown a couple of times teaching the younglings.  Since Obi-Wan was a youngling at some point, Yoda did teach him.  See what I mean?  The PT technically stuck to the story but in the shittiest, most unenjoyable way possible.

*That also ties into the Anakin left turn gripe I have.  Before Lucas decided to turn Anakin into a tragic figure while writing Revenge of the Sith, he didn't have Anakin killing Luke and Leia's mom.

[Johnstantine]

Here's a fun, quick story about the PT:  A year or two ago one of the members here (Johnstantine, I think?) was trying to convince you guys to give The Clone Wars a shot.  I wanted to give it a gentleman's try, but I couldn't get myself to do it because I had a very negative visceral reaction to the prequel trilogy and anything related to it. 

I still can't recommend Clone Wars enough. It's amazing.

[Griffith]

Now we're talkin' STAAAARR WAAARS! (This is what I get for ranting at Wally and Aaz about it =)

I don't entirely agree with you here.  You're right that the lines separating the groups were far blurrier with the original trilogy (especially in ANH where they're almost non-existent, where the "religion" comments were made).  But Yoda, in Empire Strikes Back, firmly establishes that Jedi are Force-users who use the light side of the force ("A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack").  By definition, a dark side-using/dark Jedi is an oxymoron.

That's a good point, but as you say the lines were blurry and a specific alternative wasn't defined or given at all, so at the time that was basically just Yoda's definition of what a real Jedi should be or how they should act. Previously Obi-Wan even refers to Vader as a young Jedi (even though that's his Sith Lord name! =), just gone bad, like a crooked cop is still technically a cop, just gone rogue or acting outside the rules; abusing their power. So, again, it wasn't what it would later become with the whole Jedi/Sith binary, which became tiresome to me very quickly. So, if they're basically going to undo that with Kylo Ren and Rey being more force users in relative positions on a spectrum of light and dark and/or essentially redefine what a Jedi is, with Rey in particular or even Luke before her, fine by me. The capital J Jedi are dead, long live "the jedi."

I have the same gripe with the prequel trilogy:  Lucas had a specific direction he wanted to take Anakin in since literally the late 70s or early 80s.  He was doing just that with The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, but sometime between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith he decided to make Anakin/Vader a tragic character so he made Anakin's character development take a hard left right into a brick wall.

*That also ties into the Anakin left turn gripe I have.  Before Lucas decided to turn Anakin into a tragic figure while writing Revenge of the Sith, he didn't have Anakin killing Luke and Leia's mom.

The PT technically stuck to the story but in the shittiest, most unenjoyable way possible.

What's interesting about all this is I feel like that "left turn" was another one of those course corrections to try and make the PT fit with the OT, however shitty and disjointed, which is why the portrayal of Anakin in the first two prequels felt so wrong from the start. OT Vader/Anakin WAS a tragic and romantic figure, an allegedly great man everyone admired but that fell, but subsequently expressed resentment and regret, and was revealed to be conflicted or tortured about it before being redeemed.

Anakin in the prequels is more a study in what Lucas described as a selfish person becoming an evil one, or the true origin of an evil person and what they really are. I'd almost give Lucas credit for this boldness, "fuck Darth Vader" if everything wasn't so disjointed. Otherwise he'd be admirable for not aggrandizing Vader but instead rejecting that conventional wisdom and saying, no, Vader's not a badass, he's a bad human being, he was a pathetically selfish person that turned to evil and that's why he ended up the way he did. Anakin was always a bad guy, just not a Bad Guy yet, but still always a petulant pissbaby you wouldn't even want to be in the same room with, let alone admire. Which makes the unnecessarily forced "left turn," where it's like Palpatine hypnotizes him or something, doubly strange, because there's literally two different versions of the same story happening at once, either of which would work apart, but both together create an awful case of cognitive dissonance coming from both sides of the series. This also creates the mental switch in one's view of the saga overall where Vader/Anakin goes from being the baddest dude in the galaxy, a man whose decision the world literally turned on, to a total loser and a patsy.

Before that, I think it was natural to extrapolate Luke's arc, and his temptation and flirtations with the dark side, as a parallel to Anakin's, with the alternative outcome that he does turn, but was worth redeeming because ultimately he wasn't so different from Luke (and his redemption validated Luke and vice versa, instead of Luke just saving his loser dad). It turned out to be much more straightforward though, Luke didn't turn to the dark side because he was ever and always a good and loyal person, Anakin never was.

Except in Clone Wars apparently. =)

So you've been assaulted by heard of the objectively shitty "Rey is the reincarnated Chosen One" theory too, eh? 

You mean his CLONE'S CHILD with Jyn Erso!? Well, yeah, DUH, I thought the foreshadowing in TFA was OBVIOUS! Otherwise, she's clearly the product of the combined DNA of Obi-Wan, Luke and Anakin delivered through Han's penis unto the then fertilized eggs of Princess Leia (given Rey's natural abilities, that would make the most sense actually =).

We joke, but when you look at some of the Anakin/Vader shit they were really considering for TFA, to the point of doing the concept art for it, nothing would surprise me. I know it's not popular with the "cool" Star Wars fans, but just make her Luke's daughter, please. We've already got Rogue One for the anti-Skywalker perverts that want the point of Star Wars to be its minutia.

[Johnstantine]

Except in Clone Wars apparently. =)

Griff, you're making me rage so hard right now 

As I've said before, Anakin in the Clone Wars is what he should have always been. The movies ruined his character on screen 100%, but CW redeems him. It actually has the time to show a natural progression to the dark side (losing friends, getting fed up with the Jedi order, etc). It makes sense when watching it over five seasons, as opposed to three movies. It's why he's probably my favorite character in the entire SW universe, movies and all.

[Skeleton]

I still can't recommend Clone Wars enough. It's amazing.

I second Johnstantine.  The Clone Wars had the unenviable task of trying to polish the PT turd, and I think it did a great job of it.  There were some episodes I loved, some I liked, and some I didn't like.  But overall I enjoyed and recommend it.  It's a shame it was cancelled because I felt like the last season-and-a-half was when the show really found its stride.

Now we're talkin' STAAAARR WAAARS! (This is what I get for ranting at Wally and Aaz about it =)

Come on now.  Admit it.  This is more fun than trying to convince those scruffy-looking nerf herders that TFA isn't the The Room of big budget films. 

That's a good point, but as you say the lines were blurry and a specific alternative wasn't defined or given at all, so at the time that was basically just Yoda's definition of what a real Jedi should be or how they should act. Previously Obi-Wan even refers to Vader as a young Jedi (even though that's his Sith Lord name! =), just gone bad, like a crooked cop is still technically a cop, just gone rogue or acting outside the rules; abusing their power.

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

From RotJ:

Yoda: Remember, a Jedi's strength flows from the Force. But beware. Anger, fear, aggression. The dark side are they. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Luke... Luke... do not... do not underestimate the powers of the Emperor or suffer your father's fate you will. Luke, when gone am I... the last of the Jedi will you be. Luke, the Force runs strong in your family. Pass on what you have learned, Luke. There is... another... Sky... walker.

Luke: Ben! Why didn't you tell me? You told me that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered my father.
Obi-Wan: Your father... was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He ceased to be the Jedi Anakin Skywalker and "became" Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So, what I told you was true... from a certain point of view.
Luke: A certain point of view?
Obi-Wan: Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. Anakin was a good friend. When I first met him, your father was already a great pilot. But I was amazed how strongly the Force was with him. I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi. I thought that I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong.
Luke: There is still good in him.
Obi-Wan: He's more machine now than man. Twisted and evil.
Luke: I can't do it, Ben.
Obi-Wan: You cannot escape your destiny. You must face Darth Vader again.
Luke: I can't kill my own father.
Obi-Wan: Then the Emperor has already won. You were our only hope.
Luke: Yoda spoke of another.
Obi-Wan: The other he spoke of is your twin sister.
Luke: But I have no sister.
Obi-Wan: Hmm. To protect you both from the Emperor, you were hidden from your father when you were born. The Emperor knew, as I did, if Anakin were to have any offspring, they would be a threat to him. That is the reason why your sister remains safely anonymous.
Luke: Leia! Leia is my sister.
Obi-Wan: Your insight serves you well. Bury your feelings deep down, Luke. They do you credit, but they could be made to serve the Emperor.

Luke: Never. I'll never turn to the Dark Side. You've failed, your highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me.
The Emperor: So be it... Jedi!

One more RotJ quote just as a middle finger to the PT:

Princess Leia:  Luke, what's wrong?
Luke: Leia, do you remember your mother? Your real mother?
Princess Leia: Just a little bit. She died when I was very young.
Luke: What do you remember?
Princess Leia: Just... images really. Feelings.
Luke: Tell me.
Princess Leia: She was... very beautiful. Kind, but sad. Why are you asking me this?
Luke: I have no memory of my mother. I never knew her.

Leia, you lying son of a bitch.  No wonder Luke never trained you to become a Jedi!

So, again, it wasn't what it would later become with the whole Jedi/Sith binary, which became tiresome to me very quickly. So, if they're basically going to undo that with Kylo Ren and Rey being more force users in relative positions on a spectrum of light and dark and/or essentially redefine what a Jedi is, with Rey in particular or even Luke before her, fine by me. The capital J Jedi are dead, long live "the jedi."

To me though it was never binary.  I never thought all light side users were Jedi and all dark side users were Sith.  There was absolutely no proof of this until The Clone Wars (and later TFA as far as the actual movies are concerned), but I always just assumed the Jedi (and the Sith once TPM came out) were like schools of philosophy, political parties, or religious sects.  In other words, the Jedi/Sith were the dominant groups, but you could have multiple dark side groups, multiple light side groups, etc. 

But I admit I also assumed the Empire was pretty old, being greatly disappointed when it turned out that Palpatine had only ruled for ~19 years.  So my assumptions miss more than they hit. 

What's interesting about all this is I feel like that "left turn" was another one of those course corrections to try and make the PT fit with the OT, however shitty and disjointed, which is why the portrayal of Anakin in the first two prequels felt so wrong from the start. OT Vader/Anakin WAS a tragic and romantic figure, an allegedly great man everyone admired but that fell, but subsequently expressed resentment and regret, and was revealed to be conflicted or tortured about it before being redeemed.

That's an interesting view.  I've never thought of it like that. It does make sense. 

Personally, I always saw Vader as an "end justifies the means" type.  I saw him as a Jedi knight/soldier, trained by and fighting with his friend Obi-Wan, fighting a war that drags on, whose horrific experiences in battle take a toll on him so he starts becoming more and more extreme in his views and actions.  This causes him to bump heads with the other Jedi (and whatever other group he was fighting for) who disagree with him and his methods.  Couple that with the Emperor essentially becoming his yes man, sharing his views and telling him how right he is, while nurturing his extremism and Vader starts questioning the organizations/causes he's fighting for, whether they're capable of winning the war and bringing peace and all that.  Eventually he views the groups/causes he once fought for as the enemy.  The Emperor teaches him the dark side, and fueled by the anger/hate that has built up inside him the two destroy the old order and establish the Empire while Vader hunts down the Jedi to (what they think is) the point of extinction.  At some point in there Obi-Wan fucks him up while trying to stop his best friend and Mrs. Vader takes his children and makes a run for it once they realize what he has become.

To me, Vader was the personification of anger/hate to the point where the Imperial Navy had a high turnover rate for officers because Vader would Force choke them to death for anything but the best of good news.  At the same time he was also a true believer in the Empire (he wanted Luke to join him in killing the Emperor to rule the Empire instead of killing the Emperor to destroy the Empire) and the dark side (both he and the Emperor wanted Luke to join the dark side) even if he was essentially a slave to the Emperor.  It wasn't until he found out his son was still alive that the spark of good in him was reignited, culminating in his act of selfless love for his child that washed him of his anger/hatred and put him back in the good graces of the Force.

Knowing the angle from which I viewed Vader, when the first two PT films came out it made sense.  TPM presented Anakin, his future baby momma, the start of his relationship with Palpatine, and the foundation for a strained relationship with the Jedi.  AotC furthered this with the flowering of his relationship with his baby momma, furthered his relationship with Palpatine, furthered his rocky relationship with the Jedi, started his path towards the dark side, and even had him starting to see a dictatorship as preferable to the inept republic when it came to the war effort.  So for me when RotS came out, and Lucas turned Anakin from a Jedi knight with a moral compass skewed by the horrors of war and Palpatine's influence into a rube who was sold a bill of goods by a snake oil salesman, only realizing his mistake after he was trapped, it seemed to come out of left field.

Anakin in the prequels is more a study in what Lucas described as a selfish person becoming an evil one, or the true origin of an evil person and what they really are. I'd almost give Lucas credit for this boldness, "fuck Darth Vader" if everything wasn't so disjointed. Otherwise he'd be admirable for not aggrandizing Vader but instead rejecting that conventional wisdom and saying, no, Vader's not a badass, he's a bad human being, he was a pathetically selfish person that turned to evil and that's why he ended up the way he did. Anakin was always a bad guy, just not a Bad Guy yet, but still always a petulant pissbaby you wouldn't even want to be in the same room with, let alone admire. Which makes the unnecessarily forced "left turn," where it's like Palpatine hypnotizes him or something, doubly strange, because there's literally two different versions of the same story happening at once, either of which would work apart, but both together create an awful case of cognitive dissonance coming from both sides of the series. This also creates the mental switch in one's view of the saga overall where Vader/Anakin goes from being the baddest dude in the galaxy, a man whose decision the world literally turned on, to a total loser and a patsy.

I couldn't agree with you more, my friend.

Before that, I think it was natural to extrapolate Luke's arc, and his temptation and flirtations with the dark side, as a parallel to Anakin's, with the alternative outcome that he does turn, but was worth redeeming because ultimately he wasn't so different from Luke (and his redemption validated Luke and vice versa, instead of Luke just saving his loser dad). It turned out to be much more straightforward though, Luke didn't turn to the dark side because he was ever and always a good and loyal person, Anakin never was.

I agree.  I can't speak for Lucas, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's what he was shooting for when he made all those parallels between ANH and TPM.  Why he didn't continue down that road is beyond me though.  Unless he did, but he did such a bad job at it that we can't tell. 

You mean his CLONE'S CHILD with Jyn Erso!? Well, yeah, DUH, I thought the foreshadowing in TFA was OBVIOUS! Otherwise, she's clearly the product of the combined DNA of Obi-Wan, Luke and Anakin delivered through Han's penis unto the then fertilized eggs of Princess Leia (given Rey's natural abilities, that would make the most sense actually =).

We joke, but when you look at some of the Anakin/Vader shit they were really considering for TFA, to the point of doing the concept art for it, nothing would surprise me. I know it's not popular with the "cool" Star Wars fans, but just make her Luke's daughter, please. We've already got Rogue One for the anti-Skywalker perverts that want the point of Star Wars to be its minutia.

I try not to delve too much into TFA's earlier scripts and ideas.  I think it'd just detract from my feelings for the film.  I looked up two deleted scenes because they answered the two big questions I had after watching TFA, the lightsaber one I mentioned earlier and the other explaining why Kylo is such a dark side/Vader fanboy despite the fact Vader turned good again (Snoke convinced him that Vader turning good was a moment of weakness in his dying moments, it turns out), but when I watched a third deleted scene it was one that would've made the film's haters go apeshit if they had included it.  So I decided to call it a day on diving into the film's development.

I just assumed Rey is Luke's daughter.  In the film it's mentioned she has dreams or something of a father/parental figure and, associated with it, an island.  At the end of the film she finds Luke... on an island.  I thought the case was closed, but some very recent interviews on the subject are starting to make me a little nervous that they're going into another direction.  Or maybe they think the obvious clue in TFA is super subtle so they're teasing what we already know.  (And given that most of the SW fandom is obsessed with the "who's her parents?!" question makes that just as likely.)  If they put some random asshole, or Imperial midi-chlorian research facility, on an island in The Last Jedi I'm going to be pissed. 

As I've said before, Anakin in the Clone Wars is what he should have always been. The movies ruined his character on screen 100%, but CW redeems him. It actually has the time to show a natural progression to the dark side (losing friends, getting fed up with the Jedi order, etc). It makes sense when watching it over five seasons, as opposed to three movies. It's why he's probably my favorite character in the entire SW universe, movies and all.

CW does so many great things.  I like that they turned the clone troopers from faceless CGI cannon fodder into actual people fighting an actual war.  I like that they showed Palpatine's consolidation of power beyond just playing the republic and the Jedi for fools.  I like that they elaborate on how the war affects the Jedi order.  (The one scene from the final season where Yoda has that vision
 of how the Jedi temple and the Jedi used to be before their decline, made my heart break because it was such a beautiful, peaceful place full of peaceful philosopher-types.)  Count Dooku's escape from Hondo's jail was also incredible.  He seemed so tame for a Sith lord in AotC and the early CW episodes, but him murdering all those pirates as he calmly escapes gave me a "holy shit this guy really is a dark side monster" feeling of disgust in my stomach. And, of course, it gave us the total badass Cad Bane.

Speaking of Cad Bane, whatever happened to Rogue One's villains being the bounty hunters from ESB as well as Cade Bane in his live action film debut?  Before the film came out I remember being really excited about that announcement.  How did Saw Gerrera make the cut but Bane didn't?!

[Griffith]

Come on now.  Admit it.  This is more fun than trying to convince those scruffy-looking nerf herders that TFA isn't the The Room of big budget films. 

Well, those people weren't the ones I was arguing with, unfortunately! They never rose to my challenge.

To me though it was never binary.  I never thought all light side users were Jedi and all dark side users were Sith.  There was absolutely no proof of this until The Clone Wars (and later TFA as far as the actual movies are concerned), but I always just assumed the Jedi (and the Sith once TPM came out) were like schools of philosophy, political parties, or religious sects.  In other words, the Jedi/Sith were the dominant groups, but you could have multiple dark side groups, multiple light side groups, etc. 

But I admit I also assumed the Empire was pretty old, being greatly disappointed when it turned out that Palpatine had only ruled for ~19 years.  So my assumptions miss more than they hit. 

Well, I think it was fair not to assume too much about the Jedi in the beginning because not much was said about them except they used the Force, and then later how that could/should be good and how that could be bad. It was only in the PT where they started the more dogmatic Jedi/Sith thing and made it all seem so rigid. True story: the "there's always two; a master and an apprentice" line at the end of Episode I, I just thought that was a cool line about masters and apprentices in general, like, "if there's one, there's another." I didn't think that was supposed to pass for a philosophy! Subsequently I've never been a fan of the rule of two or the Sith; the explanation was more thin than the inferences you get from the OT, which is the problem with the PT in a nutshell.

That's an interesting view.  I've never thought of it like that. It does make sense. 

Personally, I always saw Vader as an "end justifies the means" type.

Yeah, I don't think he was lying or just trying to trick Luke when he made his pitch to him to "end this destructive conflict" and rule the galaxy as father and son, but he needed Luke to buy in to pull it off and for personal reasons. I think it was his own idea of redemption, but Luke saw through it because it was still bad.

To me, Vader was the personification of anger/hate to the point where the Imperial Navy had a high turnover rate for officers because Vader would Force choke them to death for anything but the best of good news.

What's interesting is Vader seems more reasonable in the first movie, like he's skeptical of the Death Star, is initially taken aback by Tarkin's willingness to use it almost casually, and he only chokes that officer for being a dick about the Force but they all seem more like his peers, or superior in Tarkin's case, than him being the #2 guy in the Empire or something. He was more unique because of his scary outfit and the force, but just another bad old Empire guy in a special suit, like the muscle of the operation. So, his transformation into the Greatest Villain in Cinema History in Empire where he's killing his own dudes right and left is in part because of a creative decision to make him the big bad and stronger, but I rationalize it in the story as his newfound zealousness to go after Luke, which is supported in the crawl and his behavior looking for the Rebel base and throughout, "THAT'S IT." He knows! =)

Knowing the angle from which I viewed Vader, when the first two PT films came out it made sense.  TPM presented Anakin, his future baby momma, the start of his relationship with Palpatine, and the foundation for a strained relationship with the Jedi.  AotC furthered this with the flowering of his relationship with his baby momma, furthered his relationship with Palpatine, furthered his rocky relationship with the Jedi, started his path towards the dark side, and even had him starting to see a dictatorship as preferable to the inept republic when it came to the war effort.  So for me when RotS came out, and Lucas turned Anakin from a Jedi knight with a moral compass skewed by the horrors of war and Palpatine's influence into a rube who was sold a bill of goods by a snake oil salesman, only realizing his mistake after he was trapped, it seemed to come out of left field.

Yep, that's another reason Attack of the Clones is probably the best of a bad bunch despite being monumentally disappointing in its own right. Revenge of the Sith had more a setup and payoff like we'd previously expected, but after the shift from the previous two it was too little, too late and really amounted to even more disjointed fanservice, "Ok, starting over, dumping all that TPM/AotC stuff you hated, Anakin's cool now, it's Palpatine vs. Yoda, Anakin vs. Obi-Wan co-headliners at Wrestlemania, this is what you plebs all wanted... RIGHT!?"

BTW, it always bugged me that Anakin said, "Don't make me kill you" instead of the more Vaderish, "Don't make me destroy you." Little details. It probably wouldn't have helped since Hayden Christensen delivered all his lines like he was on meds.

I try not to delve too much into TFA's earlier scripts and ideas.  I think it'd just detract from my feelings for the film.  I looked up two deleted scenes because they answered the two big questions I had after watching TFA, the lightsaber one I mentioned earlier and the other explaining why Kylo is such a dark side/Vader fanboy despite the fact Vader turned good again (Snoke convinced him that Vader turning good was a moment of weakness in his dying moments, it turns out), but when I watched a third deleted scene it was one that would've made the film's haters go apeshit if they had included it.  So I decided to call it a day on diving into the film's development.

The only one I longed for was Kylo Ren on the Falcon, a scene I read about when I got spoiled on the BIGGEST SPOILER IN THE MOVIE! Fucking Making Star Wars just casually mentioned that in what appeared to be a random article about the Millennium Falcon. Staying away from there this time.

I just assumed Rey is Luke's daughter.  In the film it's mentioned she has dreams or something of a father/parental figure and, associated with it, an island.  At the end of the film she finds Luke... on an island.  I thought the case was closed, but some very recent interviews on the subject are starting to make me a little nervous that they're going into another direction.  Or maybe they think the obvious clue in TFA is super subtle so they're teasing what we already know.  (And given that most of the SW fandom is obsessed with the "who's her parents?!" question makes that just as likely.)  If they put some random asshole, or Imperial midi-chlorian research facility, on an island in The Last Jedi I'm going to be pissed. 

Yeah, don't get too cute with it, even something like being related to Obi-Wan somehow only makes LESS sense because, ya know, he was dead decades before she was born and then just so happened to get mixed up with the Skywalkers (it explains her British accent though; in Star Wars it's transmitted by blood, maybe even midichlorians =). Anyway, yeah, more randomness does not necessarily equal better storytelling.

[Skeleton]

If The Force Awakens is any indication, I look forward to teaming up with you in two years to defend Rogue One when Walter criticizes it. 

The thing I find interesting about the "The Force Awakens is a A New Hope clone" is that, even if it were true (objectively it ain't), it might be the most Star Wars thing Disney could do (and a negative that Disney didn't do it).

Think of the plot of ANH:  There's a boy from Tatooine who is unknowingly gifted with the Force (Luke).  He's found by a wizened Jedi (Obi-Wan) who takes him off-world to complete a quest (deliver the Death Star plans to the Rebels).  They're attacked by the bad guys just as they're making their escape (stormtroopers).  Through the course of the film there's a rescue of a female royal member (Princess Leia), the wizened Jedi is killed by a member of the Sith (Darth Vader kills Obi-Wan), and the Tatooine boy, with the help of R2-D2 and the Force, ends/wins the final battle by destroying a gigantic enemy ship (Death Star) that threatens the good guys the royal member is associated with (Rebels).  The movie ends with the good guys having a grand ceremony and celebration presided over by the royal member they rescued.

Now think of the plot of The Phantom Menace:  There's a boy from Tatooine who is unknowingly gifted with the Force (Anakin).  He's found by a wizened Jedi (Qui-Gon Jinn) who takes him off-world to complete a quest (deliver Amidala to the Senate).  They're attacked by the bad guys just as they're making their escape (Darth Maul).  Through the course of the film there's a rescue of a female royal member (Queen Amidala), the wizened Jedi is killed by a member of the Sith (Darth Maul kills Qui-Gon), and the Tatooine boy, with the help of R2-D2 and the Force, ends/wins the final battle by destroying a gigantic enemy ship (droid control ship) that threatens the good guys the royal member is associated with (Naboo).  The movie ends with the good guys having a grand ceremony and celebration presided over by the royal member they rescued.

See?  With the exception of superficial differences and the rearranging of events, it's Star Wars tradition to start every trilogy with the exact same movie.  So the fact that Disney didn't just copy A New Hope means The Force Awakens really is a terrible Star Wars film, and the TFA haters are right.

Someone took out their balls and deadsprinted straight at the wall with this.

[Griffith]

http://www.starwarsringtheory.com/ring-composition-chiasmus-hidden-artistry-star-wars-prequels/

“Not really, Jerry. Probably a cosmetic connection your mind mistakes for thematic.”


I've read think-pieces like this before on the DEEP, MYTHOLOGICAL UNDERPINNINGS of the prequels, a dark journey through Hell not unlike Dante, but we were all too dumb to give Georgy Genius due credit. That or it's for children (or, is it?). Probably both, one for the other; after all, it's pretty deep for a 12 year old. Whatever it is it sucked either way though.

[Skeleton]

 

I could talk about Star Wars until the end of time, but after reading about 1.5 pages of that even my eyes started to glaze over. The next time you think "ah crap that loser Skeleton is posting in the SW thread again" keep in mind that it could be worse. You could be talking to that guy. 

I do find the Lucas quotes interesting though, as far as us talking about the parallels between Luke and Anakin are concerned (as well as whether or not TFA is a good Star Wars film).

Now, Lucas has spoken often about the use of repetition in Star Wars. He typically puts it in a musical context: “[Star Wars] is purposely written like a piece of music, with themes that repeat themselves in different ways, and ideas that reprise from one generation to the next.” 12 However, in The Beginning, a documentary on the making of Episode 1, he instead likens the repetitions to poetry: “Instead of destroying the Death Star [like Luke], [Anakin] destroys the ship that controls the robots. It’s like poetry. Every stanza kind of rhymes with the last one.”

On Episode 1’s DVD commentary track, Lucas elaborates on the deliberate use of repetition throughout the saga, perhaps helping us begin to understand the bigger picture:

"It’s a musical idea. You have a lyrical refrain and you keep playing it over and over again using different instrumentation, different octaves. It changes every time you rehear it. It’s the same note played differently. I’ve tried to use that right from the very beginning when I did Star Wars. Literally it came out with something I was trying to do with [THX-1138]. Instead of three acts, there was almost like three different movies, but each movie is telling the same story in a different way. I became fascinated with that idea. It’s kind of visual jazz. You go off on a riff on the same idea. You just take a concept and just interpret it differently visually. And there’s a lot of that going on in these movies. I like the idea of cyclical motifs that keep occurring over and over and over again."

And I found this hilarious:

Consider [RedLetterMedia's] Mike Stoklasa unimpressed: “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard."

So my question is if Disney had respected Lucas (and his vision) enough to follow his lead and copied ANH/TPM with superficial differences, wouldn't that make it a good SW film in the sense that it'd fit perfectly with the other films? Or does the fact it's a remix of OT scenes with some creativity interspersed mean it's a bad SW film?

In other words, are Walter and Aaz right that TFA is an ANH clone (and therefore a good, Lucas-style SW film)? Or are they wrong, and it's a bad, Lucas-style SW film?

Edited to fix a rogue quotation mark.

[Griffith]

I do find the Lucas quotes interesting though, as far as us talking about the parallels between Luke and Anakin are concerned (as well as whether or not TFA is a good Star Wars film).

It's interesting since it completely contradicts his criticism of TFA as a nostalgia movie for fans rather than the musical jazz poetry he had in mind. This despite the fact that it does respect his vision for Episode VII and a sequel trilogy as far as its protagonist (Rey = Kira) and the circular/cyclical nature of the poetry/music/jazz storytelling BS goes (it somehow actually does a better job both at recalling the past AND being fresh than his attempts).

This hypocrisy is further exacerbated by his alleged, anecdotal, approval of Rogue One, which is nothing more than an OT fanfic literally remixing and reusing assets from ANH (and Empire); plot, characters, costumes, vehicles, sets, EVERYTHING in it is recycled and reskinned over threadbare characters and story elements arbitrarily compiled in an editing bay. It does this while also taking Lucas' worst prequel tendencies to their logical extremes and turning real actors, human beings, like Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher into Jar Jar Binks, "Finally, who needs live actors when we can just (re)animate dead ones with a computer!? This is for you, George, your dream realized. "

Although... it would be tempting to try this with Hayden Christensen's performance if Lucas was still in charge of revising each re-release, like the bad new puppet to CGI Yoda upgrade in TPM



Now if only they'd done this for the Anakin puppet they used. Oh, right...

[JMP]

I still can't recommend Clone Wars enough. It's amazing.

I second Johnstantine.  The Clone Wars had the unenviable task of trying to polish the PT turd, and I think it did a great job of it.  There were some episodes I loved, some I liked, and some I didn't like.  But overall I enjoyed and recommend it.

Hmm, I’m going to give it a shot! I’d like to see this part of the story fleshed out more.

I liked the new trailer overall. Very stoked for the upcoming movie!

So, who has preordered their copy of the Phasma novel?  One thing that bugged me about the last movie was how easily it seemed like she gave up when she was captured and told to take down the shields. I mean, she was supposed to be this hardcore leader. Seems like that type would rather die than divulge something like that and yet she did it in a heartbeat. I would like to know more about her, though. I’ll probably read it, if only for the steamy scenes (Fifty Shades of Chromium).

[Griffith]

Internet on 5/4/17:

May the Fourth Be With You: Watch This Mashup of Star Wars Characters Singing ‘All Star’

No thanks.

[Walter]

Oh is it that time of year again already? Time to celebrate!!!

[Eluvei]

I also watched Clone Wars and found it entertaining enough back then, but now I can't remember very much about it, even though it's only been like two years.

It's just average. There are some fun episode arcs but that's it. It's definitely not as hilariously bad as the four prequels, but it just feels like you're walking around a half-deserted prequel MMO or something. I only recommend it if these three conditions apply to you simultaneously:

• you're a hardcore fan
• with some work left to do
• with a smaller monitor/TV to leave it on at a lower volume.

I second Johnstantine.  The Clone Wars had the unenviable task of trying to polish the PT turd, and I think it did a great job of it.

Maybe it does, but I dunno, I'd personally throw away the tools with which I polished a turd.

[Griffith]

So, who has preordered their copy of the Phasma novel? 

Seems side characters getting novels is synonymous with being thrown down the garbage chute.

It's just average. There are some fun episode arcs but that's it. It's definitely not as hilariously bad as the four prequels, but it just feels like you're walking around a half-deserted prequel MMO or something. I only recommend it if these three conditions apply to you simultaneously:

• you're a hardcore fan
• with some work left to do
• with a smaller monitor/TV to leave it on at a lower volume.

This is much more in line with my admittedly very limited experience with the series than the rave reviews I see here and elsewhere. It just doesn't seem worth the effort to somewhat rehabilitate something terrible I'd rather have nothing to with (and the actual movies will still be terrible, I'll just have some warped view of their characters and their arcs hardly anyone else will comprehend).


In other Last Jedi news today: Rian Johnson doesn't just move scars across faces, it was also his request that R2-D2 accompany Rey to see Luke instead of BB-8, who now goes with Poe. The question is: why would it have ever been otherwise, other than all the BB-8 marketing? On that note, why not just have R2 be in Poe's possession in the first place? How much would that have changed your perception of the movie? Would people bitch even more about it being a ANH clone, or just go, "FUCK IT, R2 IS BACK! STAAAR WAAARS!!"

[Aazealh]

In other Last Jedi news today: Rian Johnson doesn't just move scars across faces, it was also his request that R2-D2 accompany Rey to see Luke instead of BB-8, who now goes with Poe. The question is: why would it have ever been otherwise, other than all the BB-8 marketing? On that note, why not just have R2 be in Poe's possession in the first place? How much would that have changed your perception of the movie? Would people bitch even more about it being a ANH clone, or just go, "FUCK IT, R2 IS BACK! STAAAR WAAARS!!"

I think I need a 10.000 words dissertion to better grasp all the aspects of that very important issue.

[NightCrawler]

Might not be the best thread to post this, but why not. I was watching this John Higgs talk with Alan Moore about the 20th century, and they dwell into sci-fi (actually what kickstarts this specific moment was Higgs mentioning Prometheus), with Moore doing a very quick summary of the history of the genre and some of its themes (starting with Frankenstein), ending with Star Wars (you can guess what he thinks about it ).

It starts at the 15min mark, although I'd recommend watching the whole thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpajFQECzAk

[Griffith]

I think I need a 10.000 words dissertion to better grasp all the aspects of that very important issue.

You're in luck because I just got word that we're getting another novelization of The Force Awakens from R2-D2's POV from the corner sleeping like a canary with a blanket over his head. It's going to be trippy as hell when we see his surrealist view of what's happening through his dreamscape! Luke will be represented as a kindred spirit in the form of a Golden Retriever with droid paw.
 

Might not be the best thread to post this, but why not. I was watching this John Higgs talk with Alan Moore about the 20th century, and they dwell into sci-fi (actually what kickstarts this specific moment was Higgs mentioning Prometheus), with Moore doing a very quick summary of the history of the genre and some of its themes (starting with Frankenstein), ending with Star Wars (you can guess what he thinks about it ).

It starts at the 15min mark, although I'd recommend watching the whole thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpajFQECzAk

Sounds interesting, though the latter, completely predictable, implication makes me wish I'd tweaked Moore in my Miura defense as I'd originally written. As one can guess it was around the "creative dickhead" part, making clear that it's so obviously affected and I wouldn't want Miura to be a big phony like that either. Not an evaluation of Moore's actual work mind you, but his posture has more to do with being bitterly insufferable and obnoxious than an eccentric genius and true artist of integrity. I'm biased though because I'm pretty dubious of every artistic "genius" and prefer humble artists that simply do consistently, empirically sound work from which bouts of transcendence can occur. It's got to be good craft before it can be great art; otherwise it's a bullshit sell, and the reason so few of these auteurs don't disappoint later, "Time to flip the genius switch and shit out some gold! Uh oh, it's just regular shit. Damn." So a guy like Miura, who mainly let's his work do the talking, is always going to impress me more than the big talkers explaining their grand visions because nobody else can get it right.

[Skeleton]

Hmm, I’m going to give it a shot! I’d like to see this part of the story fleshed out more.

That's great!  I can't wait to hear what you think of it.

So, who has preordered their copy of the Phasma novel?  One thing that bugged me about the last movie was how easily it seemed like she gave up when she was captured and told to take down the shields. I mean, she was supposed to be this hardcore leader. Seems like that type would rather die than divulge something like that and yet she did it in a heartbeat. I would like to know more about her, though. I’ll probably read it, if only for the steamy scenes (Fifty Shades of Chromium).

It's hard for me to get motivated to read a SW novel.  The string of objectively terrible EU novels I read when I was young poisoned that well for me.  (I was actually really excited about the SW Aftermath novel, but after it came out and bombed in the reviews I became weary of post-EU, Disney era SW books.)  But if it ends up being great I'll definitely check it out. . .  I hope it ends up being great. 

I also watched Clone Wars and found it entertaining enough back then, but now I can't remember very much about it, even though it's only been like two years.

It's just average. There are some fun episode arcs but that's it.

I think the multi-episode arcs in the later seasons actually detracted from the show's quality to a degree because the show's quality comes from the "human level" experiences rather than grand stories that deal with the overarching Star Wars myth.  Most of the episodes that I thought were fantastic don't have an effect on the overall Star Wars myth (troopers defend or lose a planet or base that's never mentioned or seen again in the Star Wars story) and don't include the mythos' major players (like Anakin, sorry Johnstantine).  But I love them because they take these lesser characters that are normally no more than canon fodder and give them an an ocean's worth of depth.  They make you care about characters you wouldn't otherwise care about.  They make you see an event from multiple, unique perspectives.  They show you the effects that these events have on practically everyone involved.  The characters interact naturally and grow and question and wonder.

Like the devil, the greatness of Clone Wars is in the details.  If you're just interested in world-changing stories that affect the Star Wars mythos then you'll definitely think the show is terrible.  And if you just have it playing while you focus on other things it's definitely going to suck. 

This is much more in line with my admittedly very limited experience with the series than the rave reviews I see here and elsewhere. It just doesn't seem worth the effort to somewhat rehabilitate something terrible I'd rather have nothing to with (and the actual movies will still be terrible, I'll just have some warped view of their characters and their arcs hardly anyone else will comprehend).

It's funny because Clone Wars didn't change my perception of the prequel trilogy at all.  That's what they were trying to do, but what it ended up doing is replacing the prequel trilogy as the "prequel" in my mind.  For example, if you asked me to think of the Clone Wars I don't immediately think of  the shitty, soulless army of CGI troopers fighting the shitty, soulless army of CGI droids from the prequel trilogy or of Anakin and Obi-Wan rescuing Palpatine at the beginning of Revenge of the Sith.  I think of what happens during the Clone Wars series.

I'd have to watch the series again just to be confident in saying this, but I think you could probably even watch only the Clone Wars and Ghost, and you wouldn't be missing much by not seeing the prequel trilogy.  Sure, you wouldn't see exactly how Anakin became Vader (for example), but between the original trilogy and CW/Ghost there's enough there to piece it together. To me, now that we have Clone Wars and Ghost, the prequel trilogy is essentially the Berserk: The Flame Dragon Knight of Star Wars. 

I'm not trying to convince you to watch the show or that you'll think the same way as me if you do watch it.  I'm just saying it's not terrible.  And for me personally it was a net positive as far as making up for the prequel trilogy is concerned. (Plus the last couple of seasons reveal some more George Lucas hypocrisy when it comes to what he says about Star Wars versus what he says about the new movies.  The series literally has everything in it!  )

[NightCrawler]

Sounds interesting, though the latter, completely predictable, implication makes me wish I'd tweaked Moore in my Miura defense as I'd originally written. As one can guess it was around the "creative dickhead" part, making clear that it's so obviously affected and I wouldn't want Miura to be a big phony like that either. Not an evaluation of Moore's actual work mind you, but his posture has more to do with being bitterly insufferable and obnoxious than an eccentric genius and true artist of integrity. I'm biased though because I'm pretty dubious of every artistic "genius" and prefer humble artists that simply do consistently, empirically sound work from which bouts of transcendence can occur. It's got to be good craft before it can be great art; otherwise it's a bullshit sell, and the reason so few of these auteurs don't disappoint later, "Time to flip the genius switch and shit out some gold! Uh oh, it's just regular shit. Damn." So a guy like Miura, who mainly let's his work do the talking, is always going to impress me more than the big talkers explaining their grand visions because nobody else can get it right.

Blasphemy ahead: I can think of 4 works by Moore that are equal in artistry to Berserk, and one of them is his most recent (and probably last?) foray in comics: Providence - which i firmly believe will be a classic. If Watchmen is the zenith of super hero comics, then Providence will be the same for horror.
But, and it's quite a big one, he has way more duds than Miura will most likely ever have.

[Griffith]

It's hard for me to get motivated to read a SW novel.  The string of objectively terrible EU novels I read when I was young poisoned that well for me.

Shadows of the Empire was a big one for me. I don't know how embarassing that is because I haven't read it since middle school, but I remember there was a sexy robot assassin that bones a lizard man so probably very much. On the bright side, it continued the character development of Luke and Vader from Empire in ways Jedi sort of passed over; Luke becoming more like a Jedi and Vader wrestling with his identity and place in the galaxy.

It's funny because Clone Wars didn't change my perception of the prequel trilogy at all.  That's what they were trying to do, but what it ended up doing is replacing the prequel trilogy as the "prequel" in my mind.  For example, if you asked me to think of the Clone Wars I don't immediately think of  the shitty, soulless army of CGI troopers fighting the shitty, soulless army of CGI droids from the prequel trilogy

I'm not trying to convince you to watch the show

Oh yeah? Because that's a pretty attractive argument, "Erase the prequels from your memories; it was only a bad dream!"

Blasphemy ahead: I can think of 4 works by Moore that are equal in artistry to Berserk, and one of them is his most recent (and probably last?) foray in comics: Providence - which i firmly believe will be a classic.

Nah, like I said, no sacred cows here. Moore does have great work, it's his public persona or shtick, and the cult of personality around it (to be fair everyone is probably just humoring him =), that bugs me. What are your other two works of his you put with big B? V and the now controversial Killing Joke are probably the most famous.

If Watchmen is the zenith of super hero comics

Is it? Can you be the zenith of something while being a deconstruction of and commentary on it? I suppose it is, but I see it as sort of a separate kind of work. It's almost a deservice to both it and "pure" superhero stories to call it the zenith. Like it didn't elevate the superhero comic so much as it chronicled and explored its depths.

Then again, Unbreakable or The Incredibles might be the zenith of superhero movies, but again, I don't consider them the same. =)

But, and it's quite a big one, he has way more duds than Miura will most likely ever have.

Well, it's a double edged sword, Miura does benefit from the foundation he's built, he could probably make Guts passing gas fascinating to me at this point, but building and maintaining such a level of quality for this long without burning out, losing interest himself or fucking up indefensibly is incredible (hard to imagine Moore or anyone else working on something this long without wrecking it, purposefully or not). Plus, he's actually successfully reinvented the story multiple times while making it seem totally cohesive stretching all the way back to almost the very beginning (missed it by a few pages =). Also, unlike someone like Lucas, it doesn't feel like he's just resting on his laurels and doing the same thing forever because that's pretty much all he's got to say. He slowly built Berserk into what it is today, and it still seems vital and to possess him even if he'd also like to try other things (but he's not short-changing it or doing it injustice). Anyway, a rare achievement all around. I hope he gets a chance to risk a few duds after Berserk though. It'd be great to see him develop some far out sci-fi or pure horror, or both! Just imagine him doing a truly unseemly horror comic. *shudders*

[Eluvei]

I think the multi-episode arcs in the later seasons actually detracted from the show's quality to a degree because the show's quality comes from the "human level" experiences rather than grand stories that deal with the overarching Star Wars myth.  Most of the episodes that I thought were fantastic don't have an effect on the overall Star Wars myth (troopers defend or lose a planet or base that's never mentioned or seen again in the Star Wars story) and don't include the mythos' major players (like Anakin, sorry Johnstantine).  But I love them because they take these lesser characters that are normally no more than canon fodder and give them an an ocean's worth of depth.  They make you care about characters you wouldn't otherwise care about.  They make you see an event from multiple, unique perspectives.  They show you the effects that these events have on practically everyone involved.  The characters interact naturally and grow and question and wonder.

I agree with pretty much all of this, but instead of "fantastic" I'd say "alright" and instead of "ocean's worth of depth" I'd say "kind of good depth"

For the record, my favorite episode was probably the one involving the Jedi kids trying to find those crystals in that cavern so they could build those light sabers. I can't remember much of it though, only that when it ended, I said to myself, "this was fine."

[Johnstantine]

If Watchmen is the zenith of super hero comics, then Providence will be the same for horror.

Personally, Watchmen is more of the zenith of deconstructionism in comics in general, not so much super hero comics. I'd say that the zenith of super hero comics in a classical sense is All Star Superman.

[Salem]

Personally, Watchmen is more of the zenith of deconstructionism in comics in general, not so much super hero comics. I'd say that the zenith of super hero comics in a classical sense is All Star Superman.

I can not get behind or understand the raving amazement for All Star Superman.  Of all the critically acclaimed stories, that one has me scratching my head.  I'd take watchmen over that any day of the week.  Even TDKR is better written, though the art is atrocious.   I'd put Kindom Come as the king as far as D.C. Is concerned.

There any news on the next trailer for TLJ?