Star Wars Appreciation **Spoilers Ahead**

I quite enjoyed the casino scenes. One thing I don't get it how Benicio del toro's character knew about the escape pods.

Swarovski dogs medicore SFX

https://youtu.be/SJNfysZRmf4

Vulptices (singular: vulptex) were a species of fox-like creatures that lived within burrows and tunnels beneath the surface of the salt-covered mineral planet of Crait. They were distinguished by their white, crystalline fur

"The theory is they've fed off this planet for so long that their fur has become crystalline. They've taken on the very surface of the planet they live on." 
―Neil Scanlan

According to Neal Scanlan, the creature effects supervisor for The Last Jedi, feeding off Crait for a long time was the reason behind these foxes' crystalline fur. In this way, "they've taken on the very surface of the planet they live on."[9] The designers took inspiration from "crystal glass chandeliers and the sort of luminosity and elements of refraction" they create

There was a lot of unforgivable rubbish.

I didn't understand the low speed chase bit. Yeah yeah big capital ships are slow blah blah can't lightspace closer because reasons blah blah

At least we found out what the guys wearing the red shit are supposed to do, although quite why they thought getting killed was a good idea.

Loads up Rogue One

At least everyone dies.

I'm interested in this.

Why do you think his films are clever but soulless?

I didn't understand the low speed chase bit. Yeah yeah big capital ships are slow blah blah can't lightspace closer because reasons blah blah

Yeah, slow chases don't really make for great cinematic drama, regardless of importance to the 'plot'.

At least everyone dies.

At least Rogue One gifted its audience the maturity to deal with central characters' death, rather than the flying back from the dead/go straight to medical pod. And what glorious deaths they were, none of this collapsing into their robes nonsense.

I can't justify that facetious comment, except to say that I personally find his films to be overly preoccupied with unusual plot devices and lacking in emotionally affecting drama. When he goes for heartfelt it often comes across as trite, for instance the last act of Interstellar. I was really excited to see Dunkirk and was sure I would love it but it left me cold. I liked the idea of land, sea and air and the counterpointing timescales but I thought it got in the way a bit. With his films I find I leave the cinema with little to think about as they're too neatly resolved despite the narrative acrobatics. Even Inception, which I love, is rather too clever for its own good. A friend of mine once remarked that Arrival is the kind of film Nolan would love to make and I think I get what he meant. All this aside, I still rate him obviously and I'm always eager to see what he does, I was just being a smartarse.

Rose's 'saving' of Finn was one of many low points. He was sidelined for the whole film and his sacrifice would at least have given him some import. Rose's line (you know the one), delivered at the feet of an Imperial First Order army and not remotely out of harm's way, was too mawkish for words. The sentiment that you shouldn't sacrifice yourself was laughable considering the scene was sandwiched between Admiral Holdo's kamikaze run (aesthetically stunning but incongruous... also why is this not already a standard military tactic?) and Luke Skywalker's ludicrously far-fetched astral projection suicide.

also why is this not already a standard military tactic?

Sometimes it fails inexplicably, see the end of Rogue One (and the X-Wing video game) for details.

Although I see what you mean, I don't agree. I think his films are brilliant and there's nobody else working with his consistency of delivery.

There's a lot to love, but I definitely agree that he's too clever for his own good. Just remembering the 'love is the power' trash plot device from the end of interstellar has me wringing my hands in frustration. It could have been so good, and it was doubly annoying because the film was pitched as being scientifically sound.

As for the last jedi, I found it enjoyable to watch at the time but on reflection it's just not a very good film at all. One gripe I have that hasn't come up here yet is the fact that you don't get any larger context on what's going on elsewhere in the galaxy. What's the status of the power struggle between first order and rebels and why should we care? There's no sense of scale.

I thought it was enjoyable enough.
The comedy shoehorned in is trying to capture the Guardians of the Galaxy vibe, but GotG does it better and without the history of SW.
The Pokémon were odd and unnecessary.

I give it a solid 5/10 perfectly entertaining but not anything amazing.

solid 5/10

Pffft use a proper scale

Perfect 5/7?

Gets major points for having a smirking Ade Edmonson off of that Bottom opening the film by saying "We've caught them in the middle of their evacuation"

Other than that it was the usual old bollocks. I'm constantly amazed at how much grown men invest in this type of thing in an attempt at experiencing the Proustian rush of a youth that's gone forever.

Did think that for a kids film it was way too long and pretty bleak. And what's with the dearth of traditional three act narrative in these things? Used to be in a 90 min kids action adventure you'd get a set-up, some action and character development and jeopardy, maybe a mild tragedy then a mid-movie breather to take stock and set up for the exciting final battle, a climactic finale and everyone goes home happy (or ready for the sequel). In this things just seem to start shit for all the main charters then get steadily worse with legions of blameless minions getting offed in scene after scene. Almost every scheme ends in failure and only leads to a yet more dismal situation which in turn leads to more misery. The only slight uptick at the end is that not everyone's dead yet. Hooray. Not sure the shit comedy owls were light relief enough to make me want to take a wide eyed 8 year old to see it.

That was part of the fun of it for me. The tension increases relentlessly, even though ultimately nothing TOO bad ever really happens.

Not sure the shit comedy owls were light relief enough to make me want to take a wide eyed 8 year old to see it.

Good, cos its PG13

We had ads for the new GTA game though! Great advertising...

Just back from it. loads of daft stuff, annoying cute things, plot holes, laser pew pews....enjoyed it.

Interminable. The bits with Mark Hamil schlumping about on misery rock without a single good line are some of worst bits of cinema I've ever seen.

Interminable. The bits with Mark Hamil schlumping about on misery rock without a single good line are some of worst bits of cinema I've ever seen.

.

I could post any number of analyses of why TLJ is total spaff, but I'll go with this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyZtylDq2Zw

I finally saw it on Friday.

While I did enjoy the experience, it was bollocks. It’s actually made me more annoyed about TFA on top.

I think the majority of my issues with it have been raised.

The scene in the lift to see Snoke wasn’t clever referencing. It was lazy writing.

It’s almost as if the plan was an ESB and ROTJ mashup but with a spoof level of references, and a sprinkling of Marvel franchise feel.

#saltyfanboi

Saw this last night. I was pretty disappointed while watching but slightly revising that now, but it still has quite a few flaws:

It's descending to self-parody now with the jokes (this really
shifts the tone a fair bit) and repeating the same kinds of action set pieces.

Some of the dialogue and light sabre battles are full of clichéd lines and gestures (I don't remember the originals being so clichéd).

It lacked the sense of adventure that you got with Episodes IV, V (and VII - even though it was a rehash of IV).

The plot felt quite thin. The rebels were basically escaping the First Order throughout the whole film. Yes, there were other sub-plots but the Casino thing was pointless and tacky and the scenes with Rey and Luke were quite static. I like the surreal dark side mirror scenes though. The plot shifts/twists were so flippant that you kind of stop bothering to follow the plot at all.

R2-D2, C3pO and Chewwy were basically window dressing.

I think there were some interesting ideas though and the third act had some satisfying character arcs, perhaps with a rewrite those could have been brought out a bit more.

...and this is the director whos doing the Live Action TV series of Star Wars IIRC.

i a recent interview with him someone asked why he didnt give Snoke any resolution as to his history/origins or anything, and he said he didnt want to waste 30 seconds of the film on that as it would slow the pace down (paraphrased)

so instead he kills of a character an entire film had built up previous, but then wastes far more than 30seconds on the new little-girl-in-engineering who makes totally ZERO difference to the entire story apart from the sh** bit where she stops Fynn from killing himself in an almost lightbulb moment for the director to suddenly think "this girl has made ZERO difference to this film, better do something"
imagine how he might feel if at the start of 9 , JJ gets Fynn to just slices her in two so he can get off with Ray.