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Author Topic: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion Thread (spoilers, obviously)  (Read 56734 times)

hector13

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Re: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion Thread (spoilers, obviously)
« Reply #615 on: March 04, 2016, 10:28:50 pm »

But the opening title crawl for "Star Wars" always said Episode IV, right?

no, it just said "Star Wars"

that's what i was trying to say
Wait what.

You act as if it was always known that it would be some sort of epic saga spanning 9 movies, a shitload of books and games and 3 handful of tv shows.
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion Thread (spoilers, obviously)
« Reply #616 on: March 04, 2016, 10:28:58 pm »

In part--that's how it's kind of been played off in the decade or two.
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Egan_BW

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Re: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion Thread (spoilers, obviously)
« Reply #617 on: March 04, 2016, 10:36:37 pm »


You act as if it was always known that it would be some sort of epic saga spanning 9 movies, a shitload of books and games and 3 tv shows.
No, I just thought they made Star Wars say Episode IV for shits and giggles, because I remember them saying that when I watched the commentary on the rerelease years ago.
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karhell

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Re: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion Thread (spoilers, obviously)
« Reply #618 on: March 07, 2016, 07:58:07 am »

Campy? ???
Re-answering with something more on point:
Quote from: UrbanDictionary
Camp (n.) and Campy (adj.): Being so extreme that it has an amusing and sometimes perversely sophisticated appeal. Over the top and farcical, intentionally exaggerated so as not to be taken seriously. Found primarily in television, theatre and motion pictures, camp endeavors for satire and, for those who fully understand and appreciate the risible nature of its material, it's not surprising when it develops a cult following.

I feel like that's a really lame definition of campy...  I've never seen it as having to do with being extreme.  Satire, possibly, but not always.

I associate it more with storytelling that breaks willing suspension of disbelief, usually by portraying the character's interactions with each other and the world in a way that doesn't feel natural -- usually with either excessive genre self-awareness and irony, or by setting a tone that is too serious or not serious enough for the subject matter.
To be honest, I had no idea what campy meant either (hence my first answer). That definition was the result of 5 minutes of duckduckgooglebinging.
So, yeah. I'll take your word for it. Thanks for clarifying :)
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Starver

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Re: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion Thread (spoilers, obviously)
« Reply #619 on: March 07, 2016, 09:13:35 am »

Well, there's 'camp' as in "effete" behaviour, which the Original Trilogy didn't do much of.

But it did in places.  Han's(/Harrison's) improvised intercom conversation with Death Star control after the "accidental weapons discharge" is the prime exception.  C3P0's entire filmic demeanour is an arguable case, given the likelihood that a non-confrontational personality might be deemed a useful trait in an intermediary (and might also be the spur-of-the-moment reasoning behind Ford's/Solo's choice of how to voice his apologetic inflections in the former case), although it also does translate into a 'lifelong' temerity - as a direct opposition to R2's bold "when something needs doing, it needs doing" attitude which has to be a benefit for a droid created to be in the astromech 'profession' when quick and timely repairs (quite possibly in a combat situation) are of necessity.

However, camp in the dual (and often inseparable) 'theatrical' sense of a smattering of both effeminacy and (urgent/sincere) amateurism might well crystallise in the depiction of wartime 'concert parties', morale-raising productions for troops in camps (NPI!) of men either just a hairs-breadth from the front-line (imminently going in/just come out) or digging their heals with nothing to do (further back, or in prison camps).  The utter lack of 'natural' females brings forth a sense of natural or inclined femininity (exaggerated/stereotyped, in either case, to officially indicate the sense of parody), and 'touring' concert parties might well consist of conscripts/recruits deemed more valuable as morale-boosters than active fighters.

(As an example, see "It Aint Half Hot Mum", BBC TV series from the... '70s..? about a rag-tag and mis-matched bunch of British soldiers in (post-VEDay, pre-VJ-day) WW2, in the India/Burma theatre of war.  Mostly staying out of combat and muddling through the process of putting on shows...  It's a show 'of its day', and rarely rebroadcast for various reasons, but that's definitely a depiction of "camp performance" in multiple uses of the term!)

So a "campy" production could be considered low-budget/on-a-shoestring, an ensemble cast of those easily available (rather than the most experienced character-players) and 'girly-girly' characters being OTT (if not outright faked/unreal) feminisms.  A New Hope (most of all) was very much like that, less so as the OT progressed (Jabba's dancers came later on and were 'exotic eye candy') and didn't really translate to PT.

To elaborate on one of those points, Leia definitely gets classed as Action-Girl (apart from the half-glimpsed love-interest element of the original hologram-recording McGuffin), rather than full on girly-girl.  It's almost a pantomime 'principal boy' position, Luke in some ways taking on the plucky 'principal girl' character, and C3P0 lacking in being a full on traditional 'dame' by only some minor conditions - e.g. the lack of conspicuous (and padded-up) corpulance.  And I'm going to class R2 is the 'pantomime animal' (usually a two-person cow/camel suit performance, here a 'half person' tin-can one), often serving as a living-McGuffin for various necessary scene progressions and transitions.

(Also now look at Spaceballs - The Movie.  Dot Matrix combines Dame and Panto-animal roles but sent in more an American/I Love Lucy direction, which is a distant cousin from the British artform.  But that's probably mostly because of Mel Brooks's grounding in that differing branch of fun'n'farce theatre.)
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LoSboccacc

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Re: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion Thread (spoilers, obviously)
« Reply #620 on: March 07, 2016, 09:43:09 am »

But the opening title crawl for "Star Wars" always said Episode IV, right?

no, it just said "Star Wars"

that's what i was trying to say
Wait what.

You act as if it was always known that it would be some sort of epic saga spanning 9 movies, a shitload of books and games and 3 tv shows.

they didn't plan the fan art and cult following? what amateurs.
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion Thread (spoilers, obviously)
« Reply #621 on: December 18, 2017, 02:26:53 am »

NECROMANCY: ENGAGE

Also can we now turn this into the general Star Wars/New Wars thread? Anyhoo, spoilers below:[legit do no open if you don't want it ruined]

Episode 8: The Last Jedi (reviewed and rated piecemeal and in no particular order)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In short. Disney has Marvelized the Star Wars universe, which is raking in the cash as a result of a destroying an American Cultural Artifact, but also ruining it's own ability to deliver quality content down the line. I actually hope we don't get a lot more SW films because there's just no way they'll do them justice. TLJ is worth seeing, and there are legitimately good parts of the film, but as a Star Wars movie? Rian Johnson has failed spectacularly to deliver.

EDIT: It seems to me most of these directors just fundamentally do NOT understand what makes Star Wars so good. And Disney doesn't care to correct them.
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NRDL

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Re: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion Thread (spoilers, obviously)
« Reply #622 on: December 18, 2017, 02:50:02 am »

Yay, Last Jedi discussion.

Personally, I loved it. The entire thing was just an immensely enjoyable experience, with the right balance of nostalgia ( some VERY hard hitting callbacks to the past ) along with some very solid stuff from the new kids that makes me excited for where they're going to go with them.

Also, I have to fundamentally disagree with the premise that there is such a thing as a set in stone way to make a Star Wars film. If it's a good movie, a fun, enjoyable and impactful movie, set in the Star Wars setting, it's a Star Wars movie to me.
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion Thread (spoilers, obviously)
« Reply #623 on: December 18, 2017, 02:59:56 am »

See. I actually enjoyed the film quite a bit. But it's hard for me to say I actually thought any of it was really good as each part had its own very obvious negatives and positives. I actually might see it again just to make sure I saw what I did, lol. As for nostalgia and solid stuff I have to disagree, they've butchered all the character development of the new characters and included the older characters in the most token and unceremonious way possible. It's the kind of movie I thought about afterwards and immediately started to hate.

However, I do not want to say that there is any one way to make a Stars Wars... thing. There isn't. KOTOR. 2003 Clone Wars. The Original Trilogy. All amazing. All very different. All Star Wars.

BUT!!!

The new trilogy just doesn't hit any of the Star Wars notes. A.) Every Star Wars story is about a secret mission of great importance, B.) There is a certain sense of scale and wonder at new, exotic worlds, and C.) There's awesome lightsaber combat. TLJ has all of these things, but just... doesn't do them right. I'm not saying that there is ONE WAY it has to be done... but it just can't be done the way it was.

And I have to say, impactful, it was not--the comedy was far too aggressive and really dismantled any emotional weight the big scenes had. Even if it WAS funny.

Keep in mind, this is coming from a film student and a die-hard fan of SW.

EDIT: Like... It's not a good Star Wars movie, but it's also just not a good movie (from a filmmaker's perspective.)

EDIT: Also the new trilogy feels so much more disjointed than the older ones.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2017, 03:04:44 am by Urist McScoopbeard »
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NRDL

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Re: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion Thread (spoilers, obviously)
« Reply #624 on: December 18, 2017, 03:19:30 am »

How would you define butchering the development of the new characters? I've got a general sense of the criticisms levelled at the directions their characters have taken, but I just love hearing other people's perspectives on the matter.
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MorleyDev

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Re: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion Thread (spoilers, obviously)
« Reply #625 on: December 18, 2017, 01:13:39 pm »

The way I sum up everything wrong with the Force Awakens at least since I've not seen The Last Jedi is:

Finn is sad over the death of a fellow stormtrooper. What couldn't have been much more than five minutes of screentime later, he's cheering and blowing them up.

So yeah, I think that was where the film lost me and it just never got me back. I put it right next to the Nuking the Fridge from Indiana Jones in terms of moments where films just lose me entirely and when that suspension of disbelief has been shattered, a film has to fight to get it back from me. And The Force Awakens....failed miserably at that.

I mean, the film gives you absolutely no reason why Finn changed from seemingly being traumatised by death to utterly sociopathic about it. Not even remotely sad that he's killing people who, as far as the audience knows, are the closest thing to family he has. Him leaving the Stormtroopers feels as about impactful on his character as a wet fart.

Sure some outside-film fluff might say he only liked that one guy and the other stormtroopers were dicks to him, but the film itself simply didn't even care enough to establish even that level of a handwave.  And if a film won't stand by itself like that, if it doesn't take the time to establish traits and the traits it does seem to be trying to establish get thrown away as soon as they become inconvenient to the plot/action, it's not a good film.

And as a result it takes what should have been an interesting character, someone who could humanise the Stormtroopers, someone who could perhaps even dislike violence in a setting like Star Wars and could have a whole character arc about coming to terms with that, or trying to find solutions that don't involve wanton slaughter, and instead it takes all that potential and makes them...well, nothing. And not even an interesting kind of nothing, at that.

And that's endemic of the whole film really, it simply doesn't care to establish character traits for any of it's characters beyond the bare minimum needed for the plot to happen, and those traits seem to only exist for the time needed for plot to happen before being completely forgotten.

You could have taken most of the characters out of the film and replaced them with cardboard cutouts on tracks and lost basically nothing, and the characters from the original felt so shoehorned and handwaved in (Han Solo and Chewbacca show up now for REASONS and have to fight space pirates for REASONS) with painful references to the original films. I groaned at the parsec-reference. Nothing about the originals made it seem like it should be a well-known thing, it's only there so they can wave the "Hey, remember this meme from the film you loved?" in the audiences faces.

...Wow, I didn't realise how much vitriol I'd built up for that film since watching it xD
« Last Edit: December 18, 2017, 01:35:24 pm by MorleyDev »
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Jopax

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Re: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion Thread (spoilers, obviously)
« Reply #626 on: December 18, 2017, 01:39:36 pm »

IT'S SALT NOT SNOW, THAT MAKES IT TOTALLY DIFFERENT YOU GUYS!!!

It's one of those movies that's ok at first, but the more you think about it the more shit it becomes because it's so full of goddamned plot holes, flaws in logic, characters being dumb as fuck idiots because the plot demands, characters acting opposite to previously established movies with shitty to no reasons to back such behaviour up.

Honestly, the only way this can be remedied is if EP9 is solely focused on the BB8/Imperial Ball Droid romance and nothing else. Because they had fucking chemistry, moreso than Finn/Rose have any hope of ever having.

Also fuck redesigning everything for every new movie just so you can sell new fucking toys, it's disgusting. And fuck whoever decided fucking Porgs were a thing that was ok to do.
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion Thread (spoilers, obviously)
« Reply #627 on: December 18, 2017, 01:45:14 pm »

How would you define butchering the development of the new characters? I've got a general sense of the criticisms levelled at the directions their characters have taken, but I just love hearing other people's perspectives on the matter.

Similar to what Morley set really.

Finn basically decides to fuck off, but unlike Han really has no reason to. His weird fan-love sub-plot is also just terrible.

Rey... Rey is outpacing what little logic there is to the film. Like... she's way too competent for having no training. She doesn't develop emotionally at all. In essence, she's an idiot, but not in a well-written way--she doesn't follow any sort of logic.

Poe has become a reckless idiot when he just wasn't before. Like... did Poe get shot in the head between episodes??? Seriously, his whole character arc is getting back to where he was in TFA.

Kylo is just such a lame character. Like, he's just not bad guy material. It's not the actor's fault--the writing for him is AWFUL.

Hux is cardboard.

Phasma is paper.

Also literally every question or arc set up in EP7 turned out to be a big "Nope. Fuck you." in EP8.

IT'S SALT NOT SNOW, THAT MAKES IT TOTALLY DIFFERENT YOU GUYS!!!

It's one of those movies that's ok at first, but the more you think about it the more shit it becomes because it's so full of goddamned plot holes, flaws in logic, characters being dumb as fuck idiots because the plot demands, characters acting opposite to previously established movies with shitty to no reasons to back such behaviour up.

Honestly, the only way this can be remedied is if EP9 is solely focused on the BB8/Imperial Ball Droid romance and nothing else. Because they had fucking chemistry, moreso than Finn/Rose have any hope of ever having.

Also fuck redesigning everything for every new movie just so you can sell new fucking toys, it's disgusting. And fuck whoever decided fucking Porgs were a thing that was ok to do.

Yep. The new ship designs are pretty awful on the whole. Like... A Star Destroyer used to be scary AF. An AT-AT used to be terrifying--now it's just a big metal doggo. I would be less mad with this if Star Wars was in any way dated, but if yo ego back and watch the original trilogy the style is basically timeless--there was never any need to redesign the "look" of Star Wars in any way. Porgs are trash, I hear they just put them in to cover up the puffins that were wandering around on the island though.
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Mephansteras

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Re: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion Thread (spoilers, obviously)
« Reply #628 on: December 18, 2017, 01:59:16 pm »

I will note that I have now seen it twice and I found it to be more enjoyable the second time around. The jokes were actually a bit funnier when I was expecting them and there was a lot of subtle forshadowing and hints about stuff going on that I wasn't sure about the first time. Much easier to catch and appreciate the second time around.

Ultimately, I have my criticisms of it. But Star Wars movies have never been particularly good movies objectively speaking. I'd guess at least half the impact of everything is the music, really. But they are fun. And this one was a lot of fun. So it's all fine in my eyes.
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion Thread (spoilers, obviously)
« Reply #629 on: December 18, 2017, 02:09:26 pm »

Go back and watch any of the original trilogy and compare it to TLJ. It is so much higher quality it's crazy. Man, I think the original trilogy get a lot of snarky remarks about not being quality films because they're so popular, but they really are masterpieces.
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