Lets talk all things Star Wars

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Psab keel said:
What's the Jar Jar Effect?
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A term my humble self came up with. Basically when a movie doesn't work for someone but they can't put their finger on it because there's a larger scale issue that prevents them from connecting to it so they go for the obvious flaws and nitpicks to justify their dislike. Logic behind the name is that there's tons of issues with Phantom Menace but most people cite Jar Jar whereas if you take him out or change him to a less obnoxious character the movie still wouldn't work, but he's the most in your face problem.
I literally just wanted to say that this circular discussions come up every week regarding the "nitpicks" of the old vs new films. The way the data was stored in R1 was pretty stupid but that's not why I disliked the film. I disliked it because I thought that the story was not presented in an interesting way, characters were dull and it was really surface level.
 
Psab keel said:
The reason the minor flaws of the old movies are often explained away is because they are just that, minor, and aren't so glaring that they ruin the story being told. The criticisms of the new films are not nitpicks. Addressing major problems with the narrative or continuity of the new films in context to the old (this is a series after all) is the basis on which fans like me build my stance. That's not nitpicking. That's simply pointing out the lackluster writing, from which everything else trickles down.
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Like I said, OT always gets a pass.
 
I didn't care for Rogue One because I didn't care at all about the characters and felt the story itself cheapened ANH. There were some great moments though and it's certainly the best of the Disney Era material, though that's a low bar to meet by my estimation.

Yeah OT gets a pass for the very reason I stated and for many other reasons I've stated over the years. As I've also said, I don't really care if anyone loves the new stuff. I don't get why, but I'm not about to tell you how to be a fan. I just find it frustrating that some fans have to trash the classics in order to justify their love of the new films. Even if you disagree with my stance on the ST, I think it's reasonable to see why fans like me don't care for it. It just feels petty to throw the OT under the bus anytime a story choice from the new movie bucks against what came before it.
 
If you can't understand my reasoning, despite the clear difference between the two trilogies, then that's on you.

It's comparing apples and oranges. Both might be fruit, but they are clearly two different types of fruit.
 
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Psab keel said:
I didn't care for Rogue One because I didn't care at all about the characters and felt the story itself cheapened ANH. There were some great moments though and it's certainly the best of the Disney Era material, though that's a low bar to meet by my estimation.

Yeah OT gets a pass for the very reason I stated and for many other reasons I've stated over the years. As I've also said, I don't really care if anyone loves the new stuff. I don't get why, but I'm not about to tell you how to be a fan. I just find it frustrating that some fans have to trash the classics in order to justify their love of the new films. Even if you disagree with my stance on the ST, I think it's reasonable to see why fans like me don't care for it. It just feels petty to throw the OT under the bus anytime a story choice from the new movie bucks against what came before it.
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I'm going to disagree. The OT gets a pass because of nostalgic bias.

I don't care for the Prequels because of its poor dialogue and subpar acting. But you know what, ANH has got the same problem. Not as bad as the PT, but it's got it.

People claim the ST isn't very cohesive and isn't telling the same story. But you know what, the OT isn't that cohesive either. For all its faults the PT is more cohesive, probably the most cohesive out of the 3 trilogies.

But with all that said. The OT is still my favorite trilogy. ANH is still my favorite film. So no, I'm not bashing the classics. But I'm not elevating them to some sort of religious relic status.
 
If nostalgia alone is what makes the OT good then how can new generations enjoy it just as much. You're living proof Joek3rr. That's a BS argument and you know it.
 
masterjedi322 said:
I agree with this 100% and believe this is the reason most folks will never enjoy any subsequent SW movie as much as the OT...myself included.
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There is definitely nostalgia aligned to it.

There's a whole generation of fans now on the internet who swear that the Prequel films are good. Why? Cos they watched them as kids. They were the literal target audience and loved those films, and now can't understand why others (older fans/general critics) see them as poor films. Same thing will happen for the Sequel Trilogy in 20 years or so; a whole load of adults who watched the films as kids and love them.

However, I'd also add that a lot of the impact was the Original Trilogy was groundbreaking in both visuals, production and design. in the decades that have passed, both the Prequel and Sequel trilogy faced the issue that they were no longer groundbreaking in these areas, and suffered for it.
 
Psab keel said:
If nostalgia alone is what makes the OT good then how can new generations enjoy it just as much. You're living proof Joek3rr. That's a BS argument and you know it.
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It's not nostalgia alone. But it plays a big part.

But it was the first Star Wars films I saw. And in the case of ANH, it wasn't only the first Star Wars, but my first film period.

But there many Star Wars fans that started on the Prequels, The Clone Wars, even Rebels. Do they enjoy or even love the Originals? Yep. But they'll never hold them as high as those of us that started there.

And no one is saying the Originals are bad.
 
Ron said:
Nostalgia shmoslatgia. The OT is objectively better than its successors.
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Eh..... somethings it does objectively better. Maybe.....art is so subjective though. Each trilogy has its strengths and weaknesses. What one does good, the other not so well.
 
The reason you love A New Hope best is likely because it's the best written one, not because it's the first one you saw. Does nostalgia play a part in my love of SW? Certainly. But I still love it just as much because they are well crafted films. I'm nostalgic for He-Man, G.I.Joe, Thundercats, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because of the fond memories I have of them from my childhood, but they've been relegated to my past because they don't hold up to my adult scrutiny. The original films do.
 
Joek3rr said:
I'm going to disagree. The OT gets a pass because of nostalgic bias.

I don't care for the Prequels because of its poor dialogue and subpar acting. But you know what, ANH has got the same problem. Not as bad as the PT, but it's got it.

People claim the ST isn't very cohesive and isn't telling the same story. But you know what, the OT isn't that cohesive either. For all its faults the PT is more cohesive, probably the most cohesive out of the 3 trilogies.

But with all that said. The OT is still my favorite trilogy. ANH is still my favorite film. So no, I'm not bashing the classics. But I'm not elevating them to some sort of religious relic status.
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Precisely. There are fans who elevate the OT to some kind of deistic status and it can do no wrong. Everything else is terrible for it, and how dare you point out that many of the faults of the ST and the PT can also be found in the OT. The OT is perfect, perfect I say! It's nothing like Disney SW. Disney SW is fan fiction. It's not REAL Star Wars. Not like the precious OT. And I didn't want to bring up nostalgia because there's truth to the fact that the OT has the strongest movies out of all of them. It's the most well made on a technical level. But it has glaring errors in it, a lot of them. Easily just as many as the PT and the ST. But it gets a pass because it's been deified.

Yeah, the PT has some awful acting and dialogue... so does the OT. The actors in the casting sessions were choking on the dialogue, running out of breath trying to deliver it. Everybody who worked on the first movie thought the entire thing was a joke. There's glaring issues in the writing of the OT that gets hand waved as "minor."

Same with the ST. Sure, it's not cohesive, it's not all done with a singular vision... so what? People are expecting the ST to be something Star Wars never was: a cohesive, bulletproof story with amazing acting and dialogue. Hell, have you guys paid attention to some of the delivery and dialogue given by the officers in the OT? "Good, our first catch of the day." What? Was that a fishing reference?! Or that officer on the Executor who doesn't know whether he's asking or telling Adm. Piett whether they're going to attack. I'm not even going to directly quote it because I have no idea how to punctuate that line delivery. He literally changes it from a question to a statement and then back into a question in only six words! I didn't even know that was feasible. The OT's quality jumps all over the place. ANH physically looks like crap, ESB has super high production values, and then RotJ is what happens when your late-70s movie trilogy turns into an '80s movie in the final act. I mean, really. Vader's helmet is falling off for half of ANH, the Imperial army is held together with white duct tape, and for half of RotJ, it's like somebody forgot the helmet polish. There's giant specks of dust floating all over Vader's helmet. Who lets that happen to the villain known for his shiny helmet, I mean really.

Okay, I kinda got off subject here, but the thing is SW was never a cohesive, bulletproof story with amazing dialogue and acting. Partly because Lucas changes his mind about the story every other Tuesday, and can't write dialogue to save his marriage. And God forbid he could even muster so much as a smile from his cast. The only thing coherent about Star Wars is its incoherence. And that's what I love about it. It's a different flavor every meal. Do you guys realize how stale these movies would have gotten had they all had the same director, same writer, and the same production designer across all the last 11 movies? It may be Lucas' baby, but it took a village to raise it, and that's what we got. Different mayors, different urban developers, different visions all coming together into one saga.

The ST is incoherent and has different quality across the board, but it's nothing different from what came before. And if anything, that's what's wrong with it. It doesn't live up to its potential. It ignores its potential in favor of ripping off the EU, and fishing for nostalgia among the older fans. I don't mind the ST, but it had the potential to be so much more than it was, and at many points simply devolved too far into a nostalgia trip. Too many times did they take something that could have been great and then go with "member this tho?"

I was discussing what I liked and disliked about the ST with a friend of mine, and I mentioned to him that something I'd loved to have seen at one point, is Anakin haunting Kylo Ren like they'd conceptualized. And this one time, Anakin pushes at Ben just one time too hard, and we see Kylo lose it and throw the Vader helmet through Anakin's ghost, and Anakin just frowns and disappears, and Kylo Ren then turns, and all we see is a close up of his face, framed in his long hair and him in anguish and a single tear fall down his face. It reminded me of that scene from the finale of "Avatar the Last Airbender" where Azula is haunted by a hallucination of her mother. There was literally so much potential in these movies, and they wasted it for generic black and white morality, nostalgia bait, and angsty temper tantrums. We needed the ambiguity. We needed the depth, but it was never delivered.

They needed to use nostalgia less as 'memberberries, and more for connectivity like Lucas did for the PT. The PT has a ton of great mirrors, but they're subtle, and oblique. You really have to think about them. There's more visual callbacks, like in the way a shot is constructed, or the way a shadow is cast. It's what makes the PT so genius. And that's why I liked TLJ and why I think fans hate it so much: it's a SW film in the style of the PT. It uses a lot of subtlety and visual callbacks that aren't necessarily noticeable unless you're looking for them. Like the overhead shot when Kylo Ren enters the Crait base is a perpendicular mirror of the shot of Vader entering the Jedi Temple. They compliment each other without copying each other. This kind of originality is why I think that TLJ is actually the strongest of the ST. Yes, I said it.

TFA is basically a rip off of ANH. It's the same setting, the same character tropes, the same battles and players: Rebels vs Imperials. It's safe, in that sense. It doesn't ruffle feathers, and it was done specifically in some odd attempt at LFL trying to win back OT fans. They made a movie that was exactly like the OT with none of the heart or originality. TLJ, on the other hand, is more original, and does a lot more to move the franchise toward where it needed to go. It doesn't rely on nostalgia, which is why fans dislike it. It's not safe. It's been scientifically proven that watching a beloved movie is stress relieving. The enjoyment the brain receives from the familiarity is therapeutic. That's why a majority of people enjoy "new" movies from their favorite franchises that don't stay too far from the norm. The familiarity is comforting. And that brings money, which people also like. It's when a movie stays too far out of the norm, like TLJ, that people become agitated by it. Even though the movie follows all the rules of the franchise, it introduces concepts that are contrary to comfortable expectations, and that agitates people. Luke Skywalker does what any surviving member of the Jedi Order has done before him, but because people are used to seeing Luke Skywalker as a 25yo swashbuckling hero, they are upset when he's portrayed as the 65yo retiree he actually is.

People don't like surprises. They say they do, but they only like happy surprises, and only on their terms. A birthday present, for example, is an expected surprise. You expect a gift, despite not knowing what that gift will be. But the expectation of that surprise, and the knowing that it will more likely be a pleasant surprise is comforting. Your friend showing up at your door on your day off is a pleasant surprise, but not without agitation. You may not be presentable, nor may your living space. You may not be able to properly accommodate your friend, or may have had other plans that day which your friend's obligatory presence now interrupts. It's a surprise, but not without stress. People generally find unexpected surprises troublesome, some less than others. As mentioned, friend showing up unannounced can be pleasantly, but not completely stress free. A cop showing up unannounced is never pleasant. But they both trigger an instinctual response that is in our evolved brains that releases stress. Because it's an unknown, and people are generally stressed by the unknown. Worry leads to fear. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Rather than accept what they cannot control, which is an unpleasant reality, people instead are instinctively attracted to fear and eventually hate what they do not understand.

And that's why people, even if they don't like that TFA and ROS, are still willing to accept those movies over TLJ. Because for all the nostalgia bait that TFA and ROS present, the comfort of the familiar is still preferable to a complete unknown. Palpatine is a familiar villain. Even a Palpatine substitute, like Snoke, presents that same familiarity. A villain willing to burn that all down and do his own thing, like Kylo Ren, is not. ROS needed to take TLJ's message to heart. JJ needed to forget the past, and create his own future, but he didn't. Solo's abysmal performance, despite what LFL thinks, was not because of TLJ. Was there a minority who stayed home because they didn't like TLJ? Probably, but even more stayed home because Solo was just a really dull movie. It was terribly casted, and terribly directed by those two idiots Kennedy hired. Nobody wanted to see a checklist of how Harry met Sally Han met Chewie and won the Millennium Falcon. It wasn't really a necessary story, and didn't justify itself like Rogue One did. Rogue One, despite being just as unnecessary, and with just as dull characters, at least justifies its own existence with an interesting story and fantastic battles. It fulfils half the necessity of being a part of a visual medium: it is, at its most basic, visually interesting. But because Solo performed poorly, LFL got cold feet. They saved face and returned to the familiar, thus continuing what I consider to be the ST's greatest fault: not living up to its own potential.

Psab keel said:
The reason you love A New Hope best is likely because it's the best written one, not because it's the first one you saw.
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Perhaps, but also perhaps because even ANH itself is not an original story. It's a remix of various different sources. Western tropes, WWII footage, all connected to what is essentially King Arthur In Space. It's not entirely original, but the sum of the great parts creates a greater whole. It's great, and its parts are great. In the end, it's not about the writing, it's the remixed story set against groundbreaking special effects and camera work, which was masterfully edited into something great.
 
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Psab keel said:
The reason you love A New Hope best is likely because it's the best written one, not because it's the first one you saw. Does nostalgia play a part in my love of SW? Certainly. But I still love it just as much because they are well crafted films. I'm nostalgic for He-Man, G.I.Joe, Thundercats, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because of the fond memories I have of them from my childhood, but they've been relegated to my past because they don't hold up to my adult scrutiny. The original films do.
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It's for nolstogic reasons. In my opinion ESB and TLJ are far superior films. But they will never surpass how I love the first one.
 
Star Wars and originality feels like a different topic.

Look those original three films are not perfect. Nothing is perfect but as far as movies go they are about as perfect as you get. That's why they are so revered as classics because their appeal has endured for so long. The flaws that fans point out aren't so distracting that they take me out of the story. Maybe it does for some fans the same way the flaws of the ST take me out of that story.

All I'm arguing is that it's easy to take pot shots at the originals to shore up a defense for the new stuff. I just think that's a weak position to take rather than letting the ST stand on its own. The originals have nothing to prove because time has proven them.

The themes and similarities between trilogies may overlap or are refrained like a chord in a song but the execution of those themes was far superior in the originals. If they weren't we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
 
CT1138 said:
Precisely. There are fans who elevate the OT to some kind of deistic status and it can do no wrong. Everything else is terrible for it, and how dare you point out that many of the faults of the ST and the PT can also be found in the OT. The OT is perfect, perfect I say! It's nothing like Disney SW. Disney SW is fan fiction. It's not REAL Star Wars. Not like the precious OT. And I didn't want to bring up nostalgia because there's truth to the fact that the OT has the strongest movies out of all of them. It's the most well made on a technical level. But it has glaring errors in it, a lot of them. Easily just as many as the PT and the ST. But it gets a pass because it's been deified.
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I think you want to pick the worst examples. Sure there are people like that. And as much as I disliked TLJ I'm fully with you regarding what went down recently in the TLJ thread. You brought up interesting points. Some disagreed and argued otherwise. Which is discussion, that's not hate. Others just barfed into the thread which is. But I don't get why so hung up on people who are in the total extreme. You'll never please either side and why would you want to? I'm happy to discuss movies and art and yes arguing about nitpicks is part of that but as said before if you like a piece you're more forgiving to those and vice versa, which is what you say as well basically. I think it's a more interesting conversation why are there so many who think that the OT works for them so much that they are suspending disbelief with something that they may point out in another episode. Again most of this I believe is not conscious, it's just easier to pinpoint the nitpick issues than articulating why they checked out of a movie and started becoming irritated by small bits.
The writer of Jaws told Spielberg that nobody will buy into a shark keeping an O2 tank in its mouth only for it to be shot and blow up. Spielberg said that if I have them for the whole movie they will buy into the last few minutes as well.
You can tear Back to the Future into shreds nitpicking. It's still one of my favourite movies and I still think it's a perfect movie because it works on every level a movie should work: mystery, adventure, humour, emotion, suspense, visuals, music, characters, setups and payoffs, etc.
If someone's main criticism about movies is nitpicking without being able to take a step back and look at the bigger picture that's their problem.
I deliberately responded to only the first bit because that's what the crux of the discussion is to me. But I wanted to put out thay I think you have some really great ideas and thoughts in the rest.
 
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