• George Lucas Hates Star Wars: The Force Awakens
    223 replies, posted
It was an okay movie but it was to much like the old movie, I hope the next two will not be repeats.
I watched the OT before I saw TFA, and I'm honestly not sure where people are getting the idea that it's copying A New Hope. I didn't see that at all. It seemed remarkably original, and much more serious than Lucas's OT. [sp]Maybe the only scene I can think of that seemed anything like a direct copy was the scene where they discuss how to destroy Starkiller Base at their secret hideout, but I'd think that's more a case of the New Republic having hidden military outposts, and copying the same sorts of tactics that worked to blow up not one, but two Death Stars. That's more military protocol than anything, I'd think.[/sp]
[QUOTE=Butthurter;49428908]the [sp]starkiller thing was already an obvious plot element rehash, then the bridge-over-bottomless-pit scene with han and kylo[/sp] happened and id have almost laughed[/QUOTE] [sp]Bottomless pits[/sp] are a staple of the series, though. They were in every one of the original films, and the prequels. What I want to know is why nobody's decided to put up guardrails yet.
[QUOTE=Butthurter;49428951]wait they were? [sp]i only recall them used as dramatic backdrops for the climax of esb and rotj[/sp][/QUOTE] Yep. Every single film.[URL="http://userwww.sfsu.edu/dynneson/Mapping_the_Mythology/Bottomless_Pits.html"] [/URL]
"Retro" is exactly what it had to be (IMO), short of setting it another 100 years after Episode 6.
[QUOTE=Butthurter;49429069]but it never happened with a new hope though? and neither did it in ep3 nor ep2[/QUOTE] Luke swinging across with Princess Leia to the other-side of a withdrawn bridge.
Yeah episode 7 is basically a remake of episode 4, but that's what it had to be. A franchise revamp after the prequels shit the bed on the originality front.
[QUOTE=Butthurter;49429069]but it never happened with a new hope though? and neither did it in ep3 nor ep2[/QUOTE] Episode 3 had a scene over a lavafall, which you never saw the bottom of, and Mace Windu gets pushed out a window into the bottomless chasm that is Coruscant. Episode 2 had the Geonosis Droid Factory, which are also portrayed as bottomless in the film. Episode I, of course, had Darth Maul being tossed into the bottomless pit, Episode IV had all the bottomless pits in the Death Star, Episode V had Luke falling into Cloud City's bottomless pit, and Episode VI had Palpatine getting thrown into a bottomless pit in his chamber.
also falling into that sand monster's maw is awfully similar
[QUOTE=Simplemac3;49427287]It's not like Kylo isn't strong, it's just that he's not fully trained. This is a plot point, him being Vader-tier unstoppable just isn't how it's written. [sp]I just don't like how quickly Rey picks things up, though. You could argue that she's an experienced melee user with the staff and everything but if you actually watch the fight scene again Kylo is just thoroughly wrecking her until she has the force vision, and then she just annihilates him with a few attacks. The fact that Kylo who was already partially trained and was supposedly strong enough to wipe out Luke's efforts to rebuild the Jedi is just straight fucked by this random girl who didn't even believe she was force sensitive until yesterday... I didn't find it likable. It was weak.[/sp][/QUOTE] Weird little thing about Star Wars though is that Anakin started training way too late according to the Jedi code and Luke started even later, so did Ezra from Rebels. But the Skywalkers are two of the most powerful force users in the galaxy and pretty Ezra is badass in his own right.
My least favorite thing about the prequel trilogies was that they turned jedi into superhuman ninjas. I liked jedi as wise, skilled warriors with force ability. Sure, they're more capable than others in combat, but to have them run at the speed of sound, jump a mile in the air, and deflect every single laser that comes their way is horse shit. Luke didn't fight like a swordsman, he just swung his lightsaber like a baseal bat trying to wail on darth vader. It made them seem more like knights and less like some weeaboo imagining of a samurai
[QUOTE=POLOPOZOZO;49429144]also falling into that sand monster's maw is awfully similar[/QUOTE] Ah, how could I forget the Sarlacc.
That's reasonable criticism. *Most* of the actual designs in the prequel are fine IMO, other than the obviously bad ones like in OP. Just got off a full star wars marathon and honestly the weakest points of the prequels are the lousy CG rendering quality in 1/2 (3 was alright), stupid/cheesy dialogue, and the variably bad performances given by a lot of actors. The weak points of the prequels are mostly dumb characters, bad acting, bad cg, etc. I don't really see a problem with most* of the designs other than the obviously bad/annoying ones. The prequels just needed better CG and needed some of the fat cut off, there was a lot of really bad "flavor content." The ultimate failing of the prequels is that Lucas needed people to reign him in, because even though he has some good ideas, an equal number of his ideas are really stupid and he needs level headed and critically-minded people to tell him that *some* of his ideas are lousy.
[QUOTE=proboardslol;49429201]My least favorite thing about the trilogies was that they turned jedi into superhuman ninjas. I liked jedi as wise, skilled warriors with force ability. Sure, they're more capable than others in combat, but to have them run at the speed of sound, jump a mile in the air, and deflect every single laser that comes their way is horse shit. Luke didn't fight like a swordsman, he just swung his lightsaber like a baseal bat trying to wail on darth vader. It made them seem more like knights and less like some weeaboo imagining of a samurai[/QUOTE] Yeah, but then Battlefront wouldn't have been as fun.
I actually like that they kept to the Star Wars aesthetic in TFA. The only reason episodes I II and III are star wars is because George Lucas said so, aesthetically it's so different in ways that don't even make sense.
[QUOTE=GrizzlyBear;49427128]Also he said this: "They weren’t that keen to have me involved anyway — but if I get in there, I’m just going to cause trouble, because they’re not going to do what I want them to do. And I don’t have the control to do that anymore, and all I would do is muck everything up. And so I said, ‘Okay, I will go my way, and I’ll let them go their way" Dude has no self confidence anymore.[/QUOTE] I'd lose my confidence too if I had this big fancy vision of how Star Wars should be, only for the reception to it to be almost universal disdain and hatred beyond the usual positive reception to the series in general. Although i'd also hopefully realize that, "Man, maybe I had some [i]really[/i] shitty ideas."
I didn't like the film. I enjoyed the careful use of humor, it correctly felt like a proper Star Wars movie because of that. I did not like how the plot felt rushed and a clumsy emulation of previous elements. I enjoyed the visual effects. I don't like what this movie means for countless extended universe stories. Disney should really, [U]really[/U] sit down and start figuring out what's canon and what's not. I'm being rapidly pushed away from Star Wars because of that, this movie felt like a cheap fanfiction mashup that had the privilege of being spruced up by a Hollywood writer. A lot of the "additional" plot elements that tied the story together were tenuous at best. [sp]What the fuck was with the New Republic anyway? They just let this little Imperial wannabe faction develop and construct Starkiller Base? They deserved to lose their capital at not-Coruscant to a concentrated beam of pure sun juice. Nice job pulling a Lucas by the way, using current events as inspiration. Yeah, the "Resistance" (Free Syrian Army) fighting against Darth Millennial Crybaby (Assad) surely could have been done better than what was presented.[/sp] Certain design choices I liked a lot. I really enjoyed how they went with the visual style of the Star Wars we all know and love rather than the questionable choices of the prequels. Though that isn't to say I necessarily disliked all the visual aspects of the prequels, going from the Imperial-era "everything is squares" vacuum-formed plastic and foam props to the CGI smooth curves may have been a shock for some but it wasn't for me. I did dislike how the prequel movies seemed demonstrate that technology [I]regressed[/I] while TFA kept true to the old 70's and 80's movies while adding enough flair to really make everything pop. [sp]Han getting killed was bullshit. They should have had a different Obi-Wan ripoff, not kill one of the most favorite fucking characters of the entire franchise[/sp] [sp]Rey suddenly jumping leaps and bounds in force abilities was another stupid, stupid aspect. Darth Daddyissues was trained by his uncle who had years and years of practice and meditation, Rey had a fucking force encounter with her cousin (let's face it she's clearly Luke's kid) and then suddenly she could do Jedi mind tricks. Then later on after no actual real combat experience besides beating up the occasional pervy Jawa (or whatever totally ~unique~ species that's native to Jakku) who tried to cop a feel she somehow manages to best the bad guy in single combat. This is after he had just seriously wounded a guy who was [U]raised[/U] entirely to be a warrior by the way. Oh, and after the fight was done her skinny ass carries a fully grown man presumably some two hundred odd meters to the Millennium Falcon.[/sp] Though on the other hand... [sp]Finn (my favorite character) couldn't even best the real hero of the story: that stormtrooper who yelled "TRAITOR" and threw Finn a beating before being blasted.[/sp] [sp]I certainly liked how they reintroduced the Millennium Falcon, that entire chase scene was fucking amazing.[/sp] [sp]Two-person TIE fighters? I felt like that was just shoe-horned in there. they could have shown a TIE Bomber v2.0 or something and let us finally see the inside of one of those.[/sp] [sp]They seemed to go over the top with trying to make the bad guys seem extra, extra evil. I mean who the fuck would work for an organization like that? Surely Finn wasn't the only one who went "these people are clearly innocent, this is wrong, fuck this." So why were they acting like his desertion was a big deal? I mean I expect an organization like that to have basically commissars who would go around making sure everyone was loyal and to execute dissenters... At least the Empire had a goal in mind to forcibly bring order to the galaxy, it seems like these guys were just being dicks for the hell of it and it wasn't at all believable.[/sp] There's more, but I'm getting depressed just thinking about all of this.
[QUOTE=Grenadiac;49427216]I think that was the point. The Nubian ships were ultra high luxury, from a planet that wasn't a run down hellhole like most of the ones we deal with. It looked decidedly out of place on Tatooine and they made a point of that - it's why they didn't actually touch down in Mos Eisley.[/QUOTE] A lot of people don't look at it that closely, they see a shit crusty ship used by a backwater rebel cell and expect the high class nobility to use that too rather then have luxury ships. From what I've heard of the movie I'm glad I didn't see it yet in cinema yet. i'll get the blu ray when it comes out and make sure to have low expectations.
He's right in the sense that TFA doesn't really try anything new, but at the same time, "new" isn't always "better." Unless you're just a super fan of the Star Wars universe, I can't really see any audience enjoying the focus on the half baked politics and horribly written drama of the prequels. And I'm not saying this from a perspective of years ago, I just recently got done marathon-ing the prequels with some friends. Episodes I and II were just dreadfully boring, and not even the overly produced lightsaber fights could save it. Episode III was better, but every character just came off as stupid up until Sidious was found out. Not to mention George Lucas doesn't seem to know how to properly transition between different tones in the prequels. A dark and depressing scene is almost always followed by a "comedy" or happy scene after said scene ends. It's extremely jarring. And it's not like the prequels didn't ape off of iconic scenes and scenery from the original trilogy anyway. In fact, the infamous Lucas quote of "It's like poetry..., it rhymes..." is used by Lucas himself to describe why there are certain similarities of the original trilogy in the prequels.
[QUOTE=Bathtub;49427110]i understand that george lucas has no integrity but what he's saying isn't completely wrong force awakens brought almost nothing new to the table, its a very well done carbon copy of a new hope[/QUOTE] I don't understand this. There is plenty of new shit brought to the table. I understand it's purposely extremely similar to the original Star Wars, but a carbon copy? Have you even seen the original star wars? TFA takes the kind of same structure as a new hope and fleshes it out extremely well. The scope of the movie is much larger because there is a bigger budget and more attention to atmosphere building.
[QUOTE=Complifusedv2;49428545]I want more Star Destoryers[/QUOTE] I want a galaxy but only with them
[QUOTE=Eonart;49429514]I was disappointed by the movie too and people saying "look at the numbers!" clearly do not understand brand loyalty, legacy and marketing. A good number of people didn't like Avatar but that did great just from marketing alone, for Star Wars we've got brand recognition in the mix too. [I]Everyone[/I] was already bent on watching the movie. It's not like you can refund movie tickets either. [editline]1st January 2016[/editline] Don't forget that there were plenty of people that liked the Phantom Menace on release day too.[/QUOTE] Maybe once the movie's on Blu-ray we'll see more harsh criticisms, but the general consensus is that this is pretty much better than all of the prequels, from diehards and casual fans alike. The real main complaints are the whole following Episode 4 formula too safely, and the problem that the movie doesn't take the time to explain much past the characters themselves, in a complete opposite of the prequels focusing so heavily on politics and the machinations behind it all.
Why are people comparing this to Episode I, it's obviously better and reception from both fans and criivs has been miles better too.
My honest opinion on TFA is that it's a good stepping stone from Episode VI. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not really better than any of the original trilogy, but it at least has actual characters and not just soul-less people who have names attached to them like pretty much all of the characters in the prequels. I hope they decide to take some risks with Episode VIII, but as long as the film is enjoyable and not filled to the brim with boring political dialog uttered by poorly defined charactes, I'll be satisfied.
[QUOTE=catbarf;49427100]Isn't the biggest criticism people have of the new movie that it's basically just aping A New Hope instead of trying to be its own thing? I'm not seeing what's so offensively wrong about his statement.[/QUOTE] It does copy a lot from a new hope except there is so much more to it than that, superficially ya its the same plot except we have the new clashing with the old, our heroes are not 2d cutouts that they were in a new hope and the world is filled out really well.
[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;49429425]I didn't like the film. -valid criticism to the movie here- [/QUOTE] The problem with me is that I can accept all these plot holes or w/e because you can just explain most of it by saying "It's the force" or [sp]In Han Solo's case, "I'm too old and I don't want to act anymore"[/sp] [editline]3[/editline] Hopefully in the next movie they will start to explain all the important stuff that they left out. Like many others are saying, this movie was meant to ease the audience into a new story because most people don't like change.
i would probably be more upset about the force awakens being very similar to a new hope if a new hope hadnt come out almost 40 years ago
[sp]If they had Captain Phasma chase or hunt down Finn personally (she already suspected his dissent with the helmet) during the Poe/Finn escape I think this film would have hit many more points it should have. It would give the first act some action that didnt just consist of unnamed grunts, and would set up Phasma as a proper supporting antagonist.[/sp]
[QUOTE=catbarf;49427100]Isn't the biggest criticism people have of the new movie that it's basically just aping A New Hope instead of trying to be its own thing? I'm not seeing what's so offensively wrong about his statement.[/QUOTE] The arc is the same-ish, but the characters are not. That's what makes it good And Lucas, piss off. You wanted to name a sith character DARTH ICKY. I think that means you're not allowed to touch Star Wars at this point. Not even a 6 year old thinking of his Jedi Academy multiplayer name would come up with that Kylo-Ren is possibly better written than even Darth Vader, and neither are thanks to you
[QUOTE=catbarf;49427100]Isn't the biggest criticism people have of the new movie that it's basically just aping A New Hope instead of trying to be its own thing? I'm not seeing what's so offensively wrong about his statement.[/QUOTE] Yea there was nothing different done in this movie. I knew what to expect going in, it wasn't a bad movie but I mean come on
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