Star Wars Thread - Spoilers, yo.

[Guy Bifkin]

 

[Arch Stanton]

That's fantastic 

[HarmonicGenerator]

3 hours ago, johnnyboy said:

My Celebration order arrived today.  The SHAG cards are absolutely gorgeous.  They also threw in a credential (Frozen Solo), which was a nice bonus

Glad to hear it! I’m still waiting for mine. Got an email the other week saying they haven’t forgotten me but I expect Episode X will be out in the cinemas by the time I get my order.

[HarmonicGenerator]

First trailer for The Book Of Boba Fett

[Wideload90]

I'm not sure what the book of Boba Fett will offer as it feels similar to mandalorian. That said, I'm looking forward to it and hope it explores the underground crime scene. 

(Star wars visions was decent too.)

[LaGoosh]

I want to be excited about this but I'm not at all. I think the Rise of Skywalker and the ending of season 2 of The Mandalorian really killed my excitement for Star Wars, which after about 25 years is quite an achievement. Doesn't help that I think the guy who plays Boba Fett is basically a charisma vacuum and Boba Fett isn't really an interesting character once you look past the cool armour (although the modern armour looks a bit plastic and cheap compared to the armour in the original trilogy or Mando's cool armour). Really hope they go off in some new interesting directions with this show, Star Wars really needs to freshen up.

[DavidB6937]

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

I want to be excited about this but I'm not at all. I think the Rise of Skywalker and the ending of season 2 of The Mandalorian really killed my excitement for Star Wars, which after about 25 years is quite an achievement. Doesn't help that I think the guy who plays Boba Fett is basically a charisma vacuum and Boba Fett isn't really an interesting character once you look past the cool armour (although the modern armour looks a bit plastic and cheap compared to the armour in the original trilogy or Mando's cool armour). Really hope they go off in some new interesting directions with this show, Star Wars really needs to freshen up.

I've seen a lot of understandable criticisms of the new movies but what were your issues with the Mandalorian? I thought they played it pretty well overall, especially considering how much faith they'd lost with most of the modern big screen efforts.

[HarmonicGenerator]

5 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

I've seen a lot of understandable criticisms of the new movies but what were your issues with the Mandalorian? I thought they played it pretty well overall, especially considering how much faith they'd lost with most of the modern big screen efforts.

I can see the ending of Mando season 2 being an issue for some. I'm not going to spoiler tag it because it's been a year so if you haven't seen it yet because you're saving it for some reason, don't read this I guess.

Certain circles of Star Wars fans saw it as a "THIS is the Luke Skywalker we wanted to see, fuck you Rian Johnson" so it can be viewed as fan-servicing the toxic types who were very loud on social media when the sequels came out.

My issue with it is simply that knowing what we know about Luke's Jedi academy, Grogu being handed over to him felt like a death sentence!

[DavidB6937]

53 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

I can see the ending of Mando season 2 being an issue for some. I'm not going to spoiler tag it because it's been a year so if you haven't seen it yet because you're saving it for some reason, don't read this I guess.

Certain circles of Star Wars fans saw it as a "THIS is the Luke Skywalker we wanted to see, fuck you Rian Johnson" so it can be viewed as fan-servicing the toxic types who were very loud on social media when the sequels came out.

My issue with it is simply that knowing what we know about Luke's Jedi academy, Grogu being handed over to him felt like a death sentence!

Makes sense. To be honest I've deliberately stayed away from most of the Star Wars discussion online. I tend to find I enjoy most of it a lot more before reading other peoples comments!

Same with stuff like Doctor Who too, and sometimes wrestling.. but I suppose that's the Internet isn't it. Discussions can enhance your experience as much as hinder it. Just depends if you get the decent commentary rather than the bitching for the sake of it.

[LaGoosh]

1 hour ago, DavidB6937 said:

I've seen a lot of understandable criticisms of the new movies but what were your issues with the Mandalorian? I thought they played it pretty well overall, especially considering how much faith they'd lost with most of the modern big screen efforts.

I just really hated the Luke Skywalker return. I think the fake Luke Skywalker just looked really, really shit. What I liked most about The Mandalorian is that it felt separate from the movies. Bringing Luke in just felt like going back to the nostalgia well rather than actually coming up with some original, new and creative storytelling. I loved Luke in The Last Jedi and thought it was brilliant that his final act of showing that "hey being a Jedi isn't really about doing flips and killing stuff with your lightsaber, it's so much more" and completely in character with his moment in Return of the Jedi where he throws down his lightsaber. But when he turns up here he just does flips and kills stuff with his lightsaber while all the fans yell "Cool! Look at how badass and powerful Luke is! Up yours Last Jedi!".  I know most people liked it but to me it felt like a cheap, uninteresting cop-out with a PS2 game cutscene version of  my childhood hero.

Edited November 2, 2021 by LaGoosh

[BomberPat]

4 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

I just really hated the Luke Skywalker return. I think the fake Luke Skywalker just looked really, really shit. What I liked most about The Mandalorian is that it felt separate from the movies. Bringing Luke in just felt like going back to the nostalgia well rather than actually coming up with some original, new and creative storytelling. 

This. Even without all the comparison to The Last Jedi, it does what I hate about the Star Wars prequels and sequels, and needlessly makes the universe smaller.

I've probably said this a thousand times, but the best scene in any Star Wars movie is Mos Eisley Cantina. It has the feeling of a vast, living world, full of different stories - every character in there has their own backstory, and their own thing going on, and you just happen to be watching one of those stories unfold. That sense of a world that continued existing outside of how it related to Luke Skywalker is what made Star Wars. The biggest failings of the prequels is how much they conspired to make that world needlessly smaller - Darth Vader built C3PO, Yoda and Chewbacca are mates, R2D2 was around the whole time, and here's Greedo as a little kid. 

All I wanted from Star Wars spin-off media was something akin to a "Tales From The Cantina/Jabba's Palace" anthology; smugglers, bounty hunters and assorted misfits having their own adventures in this world. The Mandalorian was coming so close to that, but they fucked the ending by making it yet another Skywalker Family moment. Nobody thought of the Star Wars universe as "The Skywalker Saga" until some Disney exec wrote down that phrase in a boardroom, surely?

[Hannibal Scorch]

16 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

 Nobody thought of the Star Wars universe as "The Skywalker Saga" until some Disney exec wrote down that phrase in a boardroom, surely?

Blame Disney for a lot of things. But break it down. Vader was Luke’s Dad. Leia was Luke’s twin sister he didn’t know of, and Vader was her Dad. Luke was the hero, Vader was the villain. Young Vader built Luke’s Robot bestie. Emo Vader destroyed the Jedi.

If anything Disney leaned less into The Skywalker Saga element in their trilogy (and 2 spin offs) Then George ever did. It was Always The Skywalker Saga!

[HarmonicGenerator]

35 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

This. Even without all the comparison to The Last Jedi, it does what I hate about the Star Wars prequels and sequels, and needlessly makes the universe smaller.

I've probably said this a thousand times, but the best scene in any Star Wars movie is Mos Eisley Cantina. It has the feeling of a vast, living world, full of different stories - every character in there has their own backstory, and their own thing going on, and you just happen to be watching one of those stories unfold. That sense of a world that continued existing outside of how it related to Luke Skywalker is what made Star Wars. The biggest failings of the prequels is how much they conspired to make that world needlessly smaller - Darth Vader built C3PO, Yoda and Chewbacca are mates, R2D2 was around the whole time, and here's Greedo as a little kid. 

All I wanted from Star Wars spin-off media was something akin to a "Tales From The Cantina/Jabba's Palace" anthology; smugglers, bounty hunters and assorted misfits having their own adventures in this world. The Mandalorian was coming so close to that, but they fucked the ending by making it yet another Skywalker Family moment. Nobody thought of the Star Wars universe as "The Skywalker Saga" until some Disney exec wrote down that phrase in a boardroom, surely?

Jabba's Palace is one of my favourite Star Wars scenes for the very same reason. So many fun and weird background characters whose figures were the ones I tended to like the most. Maybe Book of Boba Fett will go more down the 'Tales from Jabba's Palace' route - but there's now just as good a chance he'll get a visit from aged-up Alden Ehrenreich.

Edited November 2, 2021 by HarmonicGenerator

[BomberPat]

1 hour ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Blame Disney for a lot of things. But break it down. Vader was Luke’s Dad. Leia was Luke’s twin sister he didn’t know of, and Vader was her Dad. Luke was the hero, Vader was the villain. Young Vader built Luke’s Robot bestie. Emo Vader destroyed the Jedi.

If anything Disney leaned less into The Skywalker Saga element in their trilogy (and 2 spin offs) Then George ever did. It was Always The Skywalker Saga!

I think it's a difference - for me, at least - between the story and the world of Star Wars. The plot of the original trilogy was, absolutely, all about the Skywalkers. But it never felt like the other characters were just there to support that story - Lando and Han Solo, or Solo and Jabba The Hutt, had a whole off-screen backstory that suggested a bigger world that had so much going on that had nothing to do with the Skywalkers. The Rancor keeper crying over the fallen Rancor suggested a whole backstory that was never near the surface. Every single bounty hunter had their own story going on.

It always felt like a world that went on doing its own thing whether you watched it or not, and Luke's journey was just one story happening within that world. Everything that's come since the original trilogy has, in my eyes, not only got that aspect wrong, but actively undermined it. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

4 hours ago, BomberPat said:

I think it's a difference - for me, at least - between the story and the world of Star Wars. The plot of the original trilogy was, absolutely, all about the Skywalkers. But it never felt like the other characters were just there to support that story - Lando and Han Solo, or Solo and Jabba The Hutt, had a whole off-screen backstory that suggested a bigger world that had so much going on that had nothing to do with the Skywalkers. The Rancor keeper crying over the fallen Rancor suggested a whole backstory that was never near the surface. Every single bounty hunter had their own story going on.

It always felt like a world that went on doing its own thing whether you watched it or not, and Luke's journey was just one story happening within that world. Everything that's come since the original trilogy has, in my eyes, not only got that aspect wrong, but actively undermined it. 

What? Solo, Rogue One and The Mandalorian were all things which were all focused away from "Skywalkers" whilst still playing into that mythology. It is the complete opposite of your complaint, and is arguably what people complained about the last 3 films the most, that Rey wasn't Luke or Leia's child. Disney have done more to build up the mythology of characters then George Lucas ever attempted himself.