Star Wars Thread - Spoilers, yo.

[LaGoosh]

Trailer for the new show The Acolyte is out. 2 episode premier in June. Visually it looks fairly generic but I'm definitely intrigued. Anything Star Wars that doesn't have Filoni/Favreau's shitty hands on it has my interest. I'm still genuinely shocked at how mind bogglingly terrible Book of Boba Fett, Obi Wan, Mando season 3 and Ahsoka were. Just the fact that it's coming from someone with their own singular narrative vision and it won't be tied in with all the other bollocks means it actually has a chance to be something good. And that it's taking place in a time period the films/TV shows haven't ever explored is quite exciting. 

[Loki]

It's all been pretty terrible, hasn't it!  Considering it's all filmed in The Volume at the cutting edge of technology the series all look pretty awesome, and great world building, but the pacing and writing is almost uniformly bad.

It's an issue with TV generally.  The best TV format is the 45 minute standalone episode - so a story that starts and finishes in the same episode.  It was perfected over decades, and you can look at say Star Trek, or Law and Order, or ER or whatever to see how it works.  Even great, groundbreaking series like The Sopranos stick fairly much to this formula.

Once you start to get away from those restrictions, I think it actually becomes a lot harder.  If every episode is 1hr, 1hr15 and they are all meant to be chapters in an ongoing story, there's just so much.... time to fill.  And it makes TV really drag.  Recent stuff like Lord Of The Rings, the Star Wars stuff, The Witcher suffers so much from this.  It's just.. boring.  Writing a 10-hour long film divided into 10 parts is a lot harder than writing 24 45 minute stories.

 

[CharlesTuckerTheThird]

I'm a huge Star Wars fan but I have to say, out of the new trilogy, Force Awakens was passable if derivative, TLJ bored me to tears and I didn't bother with the last one. However, I am quietly optimistic about The Acolyte, even if a lot of the "fans" are angrily sharting themselves to death over it being "woke", whatever the hell that means nowadays.

[johnnyboy]

11 minutes ago, CharlesTuckerTheThird said:

...even if a lot of the "fans" are angrily sharting themselves to death over it being "woke", whatever the hell that means nowadays.

Made by a gay woman in this instance.

Phantom Menace 25th anniversary re-release at the cinema went onsale today for the May 4th weekend.

Edited March 22, 2024 by johnnyboy

[SuperBacon]

10 minutes ago, johnnyboy said:

Phantom Menace 25th anniversary re-release at the cinema went onsale today for the May 4th weekend.

Oh no. I'm not falling for that again.

[CharlesTuckerTheThird]

35 minutes ago, johnnyboy said:

Made by a gay woman in this instance.

Phantom Menace 25th anniversary re-release at the cinema went onsale today for the May 4th weekend.

Le gasp! First they want to be able to get married, now they want to make movies for us?!? [/sarcasm]

[johnnyboy]

I really enjoyed the first two episodes of The Acolyte.  New worlds, new characters, lightsabers and all that 100 years before the Empire.

[LaGoosh]

After giving the first 3 episodes a go I'm tapping out on The Acolyte. It's just not good at all. I don't know why it's like this but outside Andor every Star Wars TV show of the past few years just feels so low rent and unfinished. It's like they filmed the first draft of the scripts. They have all the worst bits of the prequels - cold and lifeless acting, story that is explained rather than shown, corny wooden dialogue, cheap looking production, the laziest and worst lighting imaginable and direction that completely lacks any tension or energy. 

The Acolyte cost 180 MILLION DOLLARS. Why is it such poor quality? Feels barely better than your most generic CBBC sci-fi adventure show. Where is the money going? Why haven't they got the best writers and directors around working on these?

Outside of The Mandalorian Season 1 and Andor the Star Wars TV shows have just been so bad. Such a wasted opportunity. 

Edited June 17, 2024 by LaGoosh

[DavidB6937]

Mandalorian and Andor definitely agree. I also really enjoyed the Obi series. I thought that was pretty well done, and didn't suffer too much from those things you're saying. But the rest? Yeah, there's so much that is forgettable and doesn't feel like it's worth watching. It's a shame as there's some decent ideas out there but the execution in general is middling at best.

[Merzbow]

With all that Disney money I'd have snapped up everyone behind The Expanse on Ted Turner like contracts..

[LaGoosh]

1 hour ago, DavidB6937 said:

I also really enjoyed the Obi series. I thought that was pretty well done, and didn't suffer too much from those things you're saying.

That show that had the villains comically slowly bumbling around the woods unable to catch a 7 year old girl? I'm afraid I have to disagree. I thought Obi Wan was absolutely awful and couldn't even finish it. Special mention to how grey and murky it was. Where's the fucking COLOUR in these shows? 

5 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

With all that Disney money I'd have snapped up everyone behind The Expanse on Ted Turner like contracts..

Exactly! The TV landscape is littered with loads of incredibly experienced and talented people who can make TV shows that look just as good and exciting as any big budget film but do it on tight schedules with tight budgets. Disney have all the resources and they are shitting out this low rent stuff? 

[Lorne Malvo]

17 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

That show that had the villains comically slowly bumbling around the woods unable to catch a 7 year old girl?

 

My personal favourite was the laser gate that the characters couldn't get past, but they filmed it from an angle that showed a gap next to the gate that they could easily get through.

[LaGoosh]

47 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

My personal favourite was the laser gate that the characters couldn't get past, but they filmed it from an angle that showed a gap next to the gate that they could easily get through.

I genuinely couldn't believe that when I saw it. Felt like something from Garth Marenghi. 

I think I knew The Acolyte was going to be rubbish about 5 minutes in when someone said to the Squid games Jedi "maybe her sister is alive?" and he replies along the lines "no fucking chance of that, mate. Zero. None!" and probably 3 minutes later main girl tells him her sister is alive and he instantly replies "I believe you!".  Where is the basic quality control on these?

Andor being one of the best written, acted, produced and directed things of the past decade is also really not helping hide how bad these other shows are. I'm not saying at all Star Wars shows should be dark, complex, adult and gritty in tone like Andor but they should be aiming for something a bit better.

Mandalorian Season 1 was great because it felt like a modern day take of a 90s action show with a sleek Star Wars sheen but far away from the baggage of the main Star Wars story. However from season 2 onwards when Dave Filoni obviously started to get more influence and they delved into "lore" rather than just being fun and different the show very quickly lost it's way.

[HarmonicGenerator]

I was excited to watch The Acolyte. My wife was excited to watch The Acolyte. She did not enjoy the first episode, fell asleep during the second episode and has not bothered with the third episode. I still really want to like it but I can't blame her. About ten minutes into episode 1, she said "it's not Andor, is it", and while Andor is a stupidly high bar for any other show to compete with ... it's not Andor, is it?

[BrodyGraham]

See, I like my Star Wars daft, full of space wizards and absolutely, positively written for 10 year olds.

I don't need it to be The Expanse, I'll just reread The Expanse for that (And you should definitely read the full series rather than leave it unfinished with the show).

I don't need it to be nuanced and thoughtful, I just got done with Shogun.

I don't need a character exploration masquerading as a spy thriller. When Andor came out, so did The Old Man and that did that stuff better.

I honestly find Andor and Rogue One to be really quite tiresome and desperate. They feel like Star Wars shows for people embarrassed to still like Star Wars.

I love that much of Star Wars is still, essentially, matinee story telling. It ain't high art. I don't need it to be. The Acolyte might not be grown up or smart, nor should it be, but my 10 year old has been enjoying it and I imagine she's the one who's supposed to, ultimately.