What if I told you TFA was just as bad & people are now just "awakening" to that fact? - Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017) Discussion

[–] billydix (3) 7 years ago

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[–] Threadkiller (3075) 7 years ago

TFA was a lazily crafted rehash with a bunch of cheap "fill in the blank" mystery boxes. As bad as this film was, I totally understand giving Jar Jar Ab's plot hole/"mystery box" riddled script the finger. Now Jar Jar is stuck with fixing the mess he himself created.

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[–] Frogarama (12942) 7 years ago

TFA was a lazily crafted rehash with a bunch of cheap "fill in the blank" mystery boxes.

Only one: Rey's parents. Even Luke's parents were left as a mystery in A New Hope, and altered later (as Darth Vader was written as specifically NOT being Luke's father when A New Hope was made)

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[–] TheUltimateHippo (2250) 7 years ago

Actually no, they flat out told us that Luke's father was a Jedi knight who was murdered by Vader after he betrayed the Jedi order, they just changed their minds when the second film rolled around.

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[–] LetThemEatCake (2717) 7 years ago

i don't remember anything from TFA.

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[–] darkpast (8722) 7 years ago

everyone is entitled to their opinion

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[–] AP (5288) 7 years ago

I agree with this statement. Many of the flaws in TLJ were in TFA as well.

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[–] Arghhhh (804) 7 years ago

Exactly this Threadkiller.

I'll give it JJ, he is a wily motherfucker. If he hadn't riddled the script with holes I suspect people would have been far more critical towards TFA than many were as they allowed a theoretically infinite number of ways to 'fix' its many, many, many problems.

But those holes have to be filled in by somebody... and poor ol Rian drew the short straw and had to actually explain this bullshit. Now everybody can come along and go "oh, but he did a bad job at filling in the blanks, I'd have done X Y Z" and in some ways they have a point - he could have done a better job - but everyone has an opinion as to how these blanks should have been filled. Oh, so Rey is a Skywalker? Boring! Yet another Skywalker, how come this entire galaxy revolves around one family. Etc etc.

And people complain about Luke, what about Han? At least Luke changed, Han just goes back to being a smuggler! A 70 year old smuggler. That happens to be in exactly the right place and time to bump into Rey. Who has to sit there while Rey flies his ship better than he ever could. That then gets killed off by his Son in the most laughably telegraphed scene in history.

I just hope to God people wise up to his bullshit and that he gets called out for episode IX. Star Wars is fucked but a bad reception to IX might at least save the next poor inspecting film series. I mean the guy is pretty much Ed Gein when it comes to Sci Fi, he's a franchise serial killer, he likes to flay the skin from beloved movie corpses and dance around in it.

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[–] furiousstyles (4391) 7 years ago

u cant blame JJ for the flaws in TLJ, TFA was well crafted and entertaining that brought up intreasting questions, how can you knock that ?

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[–] Arghhhh (804) 7 years ago

I can blame JJ for some of them at least. There's a massive difference between setting up plot threads and just leaving big gaps in the story.

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[–] Arghhhh (804) 7 years ago

And see my post above, the 'good' thing about blank spaces is that we can all have fun trying to fill them but when the time comes that those plot holes are filled they are usually very disappointing (as the story was never set up for them in the first place).

I mean - why do you thing Lost ended so badly? The mysteries were great but seeing as they had no idea how to explain them when they tried they were awful. Are you telling me you can't blame the final season of Lost for being bad on the previous seasons?

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[–] Threadkiller (3075) 7 years ago

Please define "well crafted". I see that keeps getting thrown around in reference to TFA in this thread when I think the exact opposite is true for all the well known reasons that have been cited over the years beyond even the most obvious & egregious being the cheap copy and paste job of ANH.

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[–] AP (5288) 7 years ago

I thought TFA was predictable with nonsensical characters and a lazy plot. Those big mysteries didn’t get me hooked. I didn’t give a shit who Rey’s parents were because I didn’t give a shit about Rey. Same with Snoke. I thought Luke’s death was actually more respectful than Han’s. TFA was terrible.

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[–] furiousstyles (4391) 7 years ago

TFA was enjoyable, TLJ was not.

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[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

I think you mean TFA was predictable.

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[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

The only problem I have with your statement is that it makes the EU
Sound like something other than the comic book style non sense that TLJ ended up being...I need Star Wars to not remind me of marvel....

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[–] Threadkiller (3075) 7 years ago

Some of the EU certainly fits that description but there is also plenty of the EU that is widely considered quite excellent (especially the lore building) & has been revered by fans for many years that has been cast aside for Di$ney's assembly line of repackaged hot garbage.

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[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

As I said...was never even a fan of EU...but one thing I think dark horse did well was establishing a canon that was continuity focused...after reading the aftermath series and bloodline...then seeing TLJ...well let's just say that Disney could take a lesson.

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[–] Threadkiller (3075) 7 years ago

Focusing on the films themselves highlights the doesn't help the case for what Di$ney, Jar Jar , & friends. Our heroes have regressed as characters since the Battle of Endor, and universe essentially being reset to a ANH, rendering all of their accomplishments hollow. Back to square one.

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[–] Xenopharb (617) 7 years ago

At first, I thought Kylo was a twist on Jacen Solo, but I soon found out that nothing else was the same as the EU.

Because Disney was using the original actors, they really couldn't do the Thrawn Trilogy, but they could have used that as a starting point for this trilogy.

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[–] Arghhhh (804) 7 years ago

I only bought the Thrawn books in the EU and I enjoyed those - I get the impression there was a lot of crap though.

But the thing is - people bought those books because they were Star Wars. Because they were official. Because they fleshed out a universe a lot of people loved. And then this ridiculous idea of 'nope - they're all now 'non cannon' and if you want the truth you'll have to buy our new product'. Well... if you're going to do that you better make damn sure what you replace the old stuff with is an improvement. And this shit? This shit that doesn't even follow on from each other? That doesn't even connect properly? That pisses on the original films rather than expanding upon them?

What a joke.

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[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

👍

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[–] lordbishop34 (1442) 7 years ago

When you have as many books as the EU did you do have your duds. But as a whole the EU at least the novels flesh out the Star Wars universe much better than we have now and it made sense coming from ROTJ where as TFA doesn’t seem to. I have read far more good Star Wars novels than bad. These films would have made very bad EU books. My major gripe with EU is they overdid the maxi series concepts, books with a primary storyline lasting 6 + novels, that got tiresome.

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[–] Frogarama (12942) 7 years ago

The EU was never full canon. Lucas was planning his own sequels and they would have cast aside the EU in the exact same way. That's why Lucas requested a tiered canon structure that put the movies at the top. Everything below the movies was only temporarily canon unless, and until, they were contradicted by a movie.

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[–] Arghhhh (804) 7 years ago

But the issue - as I said - isn't so much the casting away it's what they would be replaced with... Disney chucked 20 years of material in the bin and replaced it with something that feels like it was jotted down on the back of a cocktail napkin.

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[–] lordbishop34 (1442) 7 years ago

TFA was better than TLJ, and I would certainly place it above TPM and AOTC. However the new universe is not better than the majority of the EU timeline they wiped out for it. If these were released as solely books they would be towards the bottom in terms of quality.

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[–] Threadkiller (3075) 7 years ago

I wholeheartedly disagree. It's been said before the critique of the prequels (particularly TPM & aspects of AOTC) has been so exaggerated by a certain segment of fan boys over the years that it essentially became a meme. Even with the flaws the films ultimately contributed to the Star Wars lore & film narrative in positive way without undermining & cheapening the OT narrative or its characters the way TFA did.

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[–] furiousstyles (4391) 7 years ago

Id say the PT cheapened the OT more than TFA, at least TFA felt like a star wars movie and was better production

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[–] Threadkiller (3075) 7 years ago

I don't think it can be argued that the PT "cheapened" the OT by by being too different while TFA did not despite the blatant rehashing. And considering the time TPM was made about 20 years ago the production values stood out far more impressively than TFA which doesn't particularly stand out among other modern blockbusters.

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[–] TandyMan (11097) 7 years ago

There's a lot that's dumb about TFA, but that ridiculous implausible super weapon is so stupid I can't buy into the premise of the film at all. Probably the worst thing i've ever seen in any scifi film.

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[–] Xenopharb (617) 7 years ago

Yeah ... it was the "bigger and badder is better" syndrome. That took me right out of the film.

The trailer was so promising, but the film was a letdown.

If The Last Jedi hadn't had such an idiotic premise, The Force Awakens could have been redeemed.

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[–] Arghhhh (804) 7 years ago

It was like something out of a Star Wars pisstake. Not only is it yet another Death star, not only is it the size of a planet (built by a fragment of the empire no less), but it can blow up not 1, not 2 but 5 planets AND through hyperspace!

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[–] Xenopharb (617) 7 years ago

I agree ...

I would like the screenwriters to explain the science in that or the logic of using The Force across space-time.

As an audience, we already have to buy into so much of the fantasy premise. Going big like that almost ruined the movie for me. It was so implausible that it became a head shaking distraction.

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[–] AP (5288) 7 years ago

I cringed when Han said "So it's a Death Star but bigger" as if the character pointing out the stupidity of it makes it okay.

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[–] Xenopharb (617) 7 years ago

My guess is that it wasn't a line originally, but Ford said it incredulously when he was pitched the plot by J.J. Abrams.

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[–] Renovatio (2990) 7 years ago

Wait until Rey destroys an even bigger weapon by pure "Force thought" in the next episode... People are going to lose their minds... 😁

Yet somehow it is still Starwars plausable... 😉

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[–] Xenopharb (617) 7 years ago

Sort of like The Force Unleashed?

Writers who go all Superman in the Star Wars universe really annoy me.

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