Am I the only one who thinks Star Wars suck?

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BarkingGhostar

Diamond Member
Nov 20, 2009
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And there are those that trash Bladerunner, and the follow up 2049. I liked both and for different reasons.
 

sdifox

No Lifer
Sep 30, 2005
96,950
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It's the best of the three prequels, but the acting is still awful. Clone Wars was absolutely unwatchable---the dialog sounded like a high-school play.



How dare you insult highschool plays!
 
Mar 11, 2004
23,280
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And there are those that trash Bladerunner, and the follow up 2049. I liked both and for different reasons.

Blade Runner is not a good movie. I actually enjoy watching it, but it is far from a masterpiece. Its slow and disjointed as all hell. Plus, you have to specify which of the 53 versions you're talking about (which alone is problematic).
 

kn51

Senior member
Aug 16, 2012
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I think saying Blade Runner is a bad movie is a little harsh. I think it is quite overrated though.

A bad movie would be Star Wars episode 9.
 

BUTCH1

Lifer
Jul 15, 2000
20,433
1,769
126
Just watched "The force awakens" 2 days afgo, it was on TNT, although production values were very high they basically re-did the original SW complete with a bigger death star, very disappointing story and script. Ever since they hoisted Jar Jar Binks up I quit watching anything SW after that, talk about annoying.
 
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Sonikku

Lifer
Jun 23, 2005
15,745
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I will to by dying breath defend Return of The Jedi. The raw emotion between Luke and Vader in the climax was more heart wrenching than almost anything I had ever seen. With nothing more than the camera pointed at Vader, you can FEEL the inner conflict burning within him as his son is dying. You can't even see his face behind that mask. There are no words spoken. But there's so much emotion, so much happening. Yet you're able to follow. Absolutely brilliant cinematography. At the end of the day it was not about the lightsabers or the Force that did in the Emperor, but one man's love for his son.
 

Sonikku

Lifer
Jun 23, 2005
15,745
4,563
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Just watched "The force awakens" 2 days afgo, it was on TNT, although production values were very high they basically re-did the original SW complete with a bigger death star, very disappointing story and script. Ever since they hoisted Jar Jar Binks up I quit watching anything SW after that, talk about annoying.
Yeah. For all the flack given to the prequels, Force Awakens was the first that left me feeling hollow upon leaving the theater. The sequels tried so hard to shoehorn the New Republic into being "the underdog" again it just didn't work. These movies should have been about the struggles of going from hit and run freedom fighters into forming a functional government that works. Meanwhile the Imperials, reduced to remnants, become the new "rebels". The line between freedom fighter and terrorist would be blurred. One man's peace and security is another man's tyranny and so forth. That's the direction Star Wars needed to go, but in the end Disney watered it down for mainstreamy mass market appeal, to the point where there was nothing of substance left.
 
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BUTCH1

Lifer
Jul 15, 2000
20,433
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Yeah. For all the flack given to the prequels, Force Awakens was the first that left me feeling hollow upon leaving the theater. The sequels tried so hard to shoehorn the New Republic into being "the underdog" again it just didn't work. These movies should have been about the struggles of going from hit and run freedom fighters into forming a functional government that works. Meanwhile the Imperials, reduced to remnants, become the new "rebels". The line between freedom fighter and terrorist would be blurred. One man's peace and security is another man's tyranny and so forth. That's the direction Star Wars needed to go, but in the end Disney watered it down for mainstreamy mass market appeal, to the point where there was nothing of substance left.
Yea, it's clear Disney wanted a cash making machine with TFA, glad I didn't pay to see this and the excuse of "oh, that's what people wanted" is lame.
 

Regeneration

Member
Nov 3, 2007
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Yeah. For all the flack given to the prequels, Force Awakens was the first that left me feeling hollow upon leaving the theater. The sequels tried so hard to shoehorn the New Republic into being "the underdog" again it just didn't work. These movies should have been about the struggles of going from hit and run freedom fighters into forming a functional government that works. Meanwhile the Imperials, reduced to remnants, become the new "rebels". The line between freedom fighter and terrorist would be blurred. One man's peace and security is another man's tyranny and so forth. That's the direction Star Wars needed to go, but in the end Disney watered it down for mainstreamy mass market appeal, to the point where there was nothing of substance left.

I'm watching it right now and already annoyed after 30 minutes.

* Android design is totally ridiculous and makes no sense. Looks like a soccer ball.
* Protagonist is a British girl with annoying accent.
* Political correctness and diversity shoved to our faces.
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,634
8,522
136
Never particularly liked it. Probably simply that was a bit too old for it when it first came out. Too much fairy-tale space-opera, not enough hard-SF, for a geek like me, I guess. But the politics also put me off. As an anti-monarchist in a country that has actual princesses (that the media never stop telling you about), it's hard to like any movie that has a Princess as a central heroine. Not to mention all the dubious mystical 'Force' stuff not sitting well with my teenage atheism. In fact that apparently got worse in the sequels, as I understand it (haven't seen most of them) as the mysticism and the royalty themes merged when Lucas made it all about some sort of natural mystical aristocracy, who are just biologically superior to everyone else.

I remember liking the TV show Blakes Seven a lot more at that time. Group of scrappy rebels take on an evil empire, fail at everything they do, hate each others guts, and all die in the end. Seemed a more realistic depiction of actual revolution and resistance to me.

I was surprised to find recently that I didn't mind Rogue One, though. It didn't have too much of that mystical guff in it, was more a story of the ordinary footsoldiers of revolutions who die in obscurity so the Princesses and the gurus could get all the credit and glory.
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
16,068
7,380
146
Never particularly liked it. Probably simply that was a bit too old for it when it first came out. Too much fairy-tale space-opera, not enough hard-SF, for a geek like me, I guess. But the politics also put me off. As an anti-monarchist in a country that has actual princesses (that the media never stop telling you about), it's hard to like any movie that has a Princess as a central heroine. Not to mention all the dubious mystical 'Force' stuff not sitting well with my teenage atheism. In fact that apparently got worse in the sequels, as I understand it (haven't seen most of them) as the mysticism and the royalty themes merged when Lucas made it all about some sort of natural mystical aristocracy, who are just biologically superior to everyone else.

I remember liking the TV show Blakes Seven a lot more at that time. Group of scrappy rebels take on an evil empire, fail at everything they do, hate each others guts, and all die in the end. Seemed a more realistic depiction of actual revolution and resistance to me.

I was surprised to find recently that I didn't mind Rogue One, though. It didn't have too much of that mystical guff in it, was more a story of the ordinary footsoldiers of revolutions who die in obscurity so the Princesses and the gurus could get all the credit and glory.
Well I guess you could rip apart just about any movie ever made if you read that deeply into it.

As a kid watching Star Wars I never once thought about any of those possible societal or religious connections.
 

sdifox

No Lifer
Sep 30, 2005
96,950
16,210
126
Never particularly liked it. Probably simply that was a bit too old for it when it first came out. Too much fairy-tale space-opera, not enough hard-SF, for a geek like me, I guess. But the politics also put me off. As an anti-monarchist in a country that has actual princesses (that the media never stop telling you about), it's hard to like any movie that has a Princess as a central heroine. Not to mention all the dubious mystical 'Force' stuff not sitting well with my teenage atheism. In fact that apparently got worse in the sequels, as I understand it (haven't seen most of them) as the mysticism and the royalty themes merged when Lucas made it all about some sort of natural mystical aristocracy, who are just biologically superior to everyone else.

I remember liking the TV show Blakes Seven a lot more at that time. Group of scrappy rebels take on an evil empire, fail at everything they do, hate each others guts, and all die in the end. Seemed a more realistic depiction of actual revolution and resistance to me.

I was surprised to find recently that I didn't mind Rogue One, though. It didn't have too much of that mystical guff in it, was more a story of the ordinary footsoldiers of revolutions who die in obscurity so the Princesses and the gurus could get all the credit and glory.


You don't like Princess Buttercup? :eek:
 

BUTCH1

Lifer
Jul 15, 2000
20,433
1,769
126
I'm watching it right now and already annoyed after 30 minutes.

* Android design is totally ridiculous and makes no sense. Looks like a soccer ball.
* Protagonist is a British girl with annoying accent.
* Political correctness and diversity shoved to our faces.
Yup, it's clear hey had to CGI that entire android because there would be no logical way it could locomotive itself then hey, lets mount it's "head" on in an obvious way to look cooky and sell more toys. I guess since Lucas sold the franchise for a small fortune to Disney they looked to make a fast recoup ASAP. I about laughed when I saw the "new" death star, was this supposed to be a joke.
 

Fritzo

Lifer
Jan 3, 2001
41,910
2,141
126
First and foremost, the Star Wars franchise should be separated into the original trilogy and everything else. If you want to hate on anything after Return of the Jedi go ahead. And if you want to include some parts of Return of the Jedi, that's okay too.

But you're completely wrong about the first two movies. They were not meant to be anything other than what they were, entertaining space westerns. And they were truly epic examples of film making for that era. While the stories were simple, the art that went into making them was some of the best ever done in movies. They were fast, fun and capable of being enjoyed by kids and adults and that's tough to pull off.
Yep, say this a lot. Star Wars was supposed to be a one-off movie, everyone (including Lucas) was surprised at how popular it became, so they made a sequel that had to spin a story into the first movie and make it look like it was always supposed to be there. Lucas actually had an adequate budget for Empire Strike Back, so he was able to create a cinematic masterpiece (the lighting in that movie alone influenced filming for decades to come).

After the success of Empire, men in suits started showing up in the script writing, wanting more and more toys for those "NEW...FROM KENNER..." Saturday morning toy commercials. The writing got lazy as they seemed to run out of ideas, a bunch of compromises needed to be made but the script wasn't rewritten to compensate (the most notable was Ewoks were supposed to be Wookies, but they couldn't find enough tall actors. That's why tiny teddy bears are destroying the Empire's military equipment so easily). The whole movie had a "lets just get this over with" feel to it. Harrison Ford was...well..Harrison Ford and the best part, but everything from the demented muppet show at the first part of the movie to the overblown desert scene to the amazingly well equipped fleet of Rebels at the end let to a big disappointment.

Don't get me wrong- I still loved the movie and it introduced iconic characters and ships: Jabba, Scout Troopers, AT-STs, A-Wing and B-Wing fighters, the Super Star Destroyer, and more. I just didn't feel the movie gelled correctly. It's as if the script was written by 3 different groups, and then Fox executives made changes on top of that.

The prequels and sequels didn't work for one reason in my view: Jedi and Sith with lightsabers are only effective if they're incredibly rare. In those movies, there were 1000's of them all over the place, and in the later sequels the Empire even made defenses against lightsabers because they became such a threat. The draw of force users is they're able to control a weapon so incredibly powerful that normal people aren't able to control it much less have a defense against it. Imagine how boring Superman would be if everyone had super powers...they would have to call him Averageman, and how interesting is average?
 
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pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
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Well I guess you could rip apart just about any movie ever made if you read that deeply into it.

As a kid watching Star Wars I never once thought about any of those possible societal or religious connections.

I wouldn't say I was 'ripping it apart', just explaining why it didn't really grab me at the time. Not saying it's wrong to like it (my younger brother was a huge fan, perhaps precisely because he's in the age-group that it most appealed to at the time it came out, whereas I was a bit older? I only really saw all the original trilogy at the cinema because I was taking him to see them!).

It's very much in the space-opera/fairy-tale mould, I think, rather than 'hard SF', and it feels like the tropes of that form are just inherently rather on the conservative side.
 

rh71

No Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
52,844
1,049
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I don't like shows/movies where they play dress-up. I was all into Dark Angel sci-fi until they started with the freak show in S2.

Never watched Star Wars (maybe a few minutes), never watched Star Trek, and hell naw at LOTR.
 

BudAshes

Lifer
Jul 20, 2003
13,935
3,229
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I don't like shows/movies where they play dress-up. I was all into Dark Angel sci-fi until they started with the freak show in S2.

Never watched Star Wars (maybe a few minutes), never watched Star Trek, and hell naw at LOTR.

Well that includes every movie and tv show ever besides documentaries.
 
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pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,634
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I'm talking wack masks and costumes, something all 3 movies have in common. But you knew that.

Not that I want to defend Star Wars (see my previous comments) but that seems an odd objection. Surely acting is all about 'playing dress-up', in the final analysis? Do you feel the same about historical drama?
 

BudAshes

Lifer
Jul 20, 2003
13,935
3,229
146
I'm talking wack masks and costumes, something all 3 movies have in common. But you knew that.

Hecka wack yo!

I doubt anyone knows what the fuck you are talking about, but that's not a requirement for posting here so don't let that stop you!
 

Spacehead

Lifer
Jun 2, 2002
13,067
9,858
136
I don't like shows/movies where they play dress-up.
Well that includes every movie and tv show ever besides documentaries.
Maybe he watches a lot of pr0n?

I guess i don't have the hate for these films that most of you seem to have. I haven't seen all of them yet but & while certainly not "OMG these are the greatest movies ever" i find them overall watchable & mostly enjoyable for what they are.