Star Wars: The Complete Saga (1977-2005)

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by chip75

The last person I remember been knighted was Anakin, Luke didn't pass the trials accustomed to the Jedi, but Yoda did suggest a battlefield promotion if he defeated Vader. Once the Order fell there weren't any Knights until a new order was established.

It's unclear what kind of order Luke set up after RotJ and whether Leia went through any trials with anyone else.

He was knighted by Palpatine.

"So be it...Jedi."

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

I never complained that the prequels were nothing like the originals, and never will, but I sure hate TFA.

[Show spoiler]It's just awful, and exists soley to please the OT fanboys with more X-Wings and TIE fighters, the most pathetic villain ever, yet another desert planet, worlds that look like Earth, Han Solo and Co.: We are home....and worst of all: No SW magic, no SW feel, worst SW score....abysmal.

Clearly they failed to please one particular fan.

[Hardback247]

Anyone who says Kylo Ren is a pathetic villain is missing the entire point. The point of his character is that he ISN'T Darth Vader, and he's a wannabe. Rey even points that out to him.

[BladeRunner2007]

Originally Posted by Hardback247

Anyone who says Kylo Ren is a pathetic villain is missing the entire point. The point of his character is that he ISN'T Darth Vader, and he's a wannabe. Rey even points that out to him.

Yes, he is a wannabe, so he is a pathetic villain. No one is missing the point here. Just because it is designed to be that way, doesn't mean it's working for everybody.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by Hardback247

Anyone who says Kylo Ren is a pathetic villain is missing the entire point. The point of his character is that he ISN'T Darth Vader, and he's a wannabe. Rey even points that out to him.

Stanley Kubrick could have directed from a script by Dalton Trumbo, Shakespeare, and H. G. Wells, and hardcore Lucas fans would still call it garbage. Fandom and emotion.

[Rich1631]

I can't stop laughing when people brutally bash The Force Awakens and sing praises for the prequels No. Just no.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by BladeRunner2007

Yes, he is a wannabe, so he is a pathetic villain. No one is missing the point here. Just because it is designed to be that way, doesn't mean it's working for everybody.

It's a set-up. The Light Side is driving him insane. There's what he wants, and who he is. You watch. The more dark acts he commits trying to drive the goodness out of him, the worse it gets for him internally as goodness fights back.

[Hardback247]

I may have said this before, but in many ways Kylo Ren is EXACTLY what angry Star Wars fanboys are like. I wouldn't be surprised if he was created as an intentional analogy. He has seen the legacy of what's come before, wants it to be exactly how he wants it, and when things do go his way, he has a fit. I can't believe more people don't see the irony in fanboys criticizing someone who behaves just like them.

[Bluyoda]

Originally Posted by Rich1631

I can't stop laughing when people brutally bash The Force Awakens and sing praises for the prequels No. Just no.

YES. Just YES. We can do this all day, buddy, but this is not the place for it.

[darkness2918]

Originally Posted by Rich1631

Force Awakens was awesome, how anybody can bash that is crazy. Yes it's similar to A New Hope, it was clear that was intentional...to take you down memory lane, and hit you with nostgia. After all the bellyaching that the prequels were nothing like the originals, people complain that Force Awakens is too similar to the originals. What the f*ck do you people want?

I like the prequels & rank TFA at the bottom after all the other films.

[Hardback247]

Nobody knows what they want.

[darkness2918]

Originally Posted by Rich1631

I can't stop laughing when people brutally bash The Force Awakens and sing praises for the prequels No. Just no.

Its all subjective & opinions. For example my personal ranking is like this:

Empire Strikes Back
Revenge of the Sith
Attack of the Clones
The Phantom Menace
A New Hope
Return of the Jedi
Force Awakens

[Arawn]

Originally Posted by El_Fez

"Hey, how did you get Luke's saber?" "That's a story for another time." - no Abrams, that's kind of important information. You don't get to handwave something like that away.

Is it really that important? "I know someone who knows someone who found it in the bottom of Cloud City." Not exactly epic stuff.

I mean, if not having the explanation in the film saves us from that lightsaber-floating-through-space BS, that's a good thing.

[Geoff D]

The entire movie is basically "that's a story for another time" e.g. how Maz got the lightsaber, what happened with Luke and Ben, who Snoke is, where the First Order came from, why the Republic has this weird militia set-up with the Resistance, who Rey is, etc etc. Some people - most people, even - are able to look past that and enjoy the film for what it is but I freely admit to struggling with the utter lack of backstory, and the New Hope-redux aspect of the story itself just doesn't do it for me at all. IMO it's little more than a glorified greatest hits package from a cover band (even John Williams doesn't sound like John Williams apart from Rey's theme), and I'm praying with all my heart that Eps VIII and IX can retroactively connect the dots and make me like TFA.

[kemcha]

While I can understand the hate concerning the prequels, and I have my own reservations about the films, the one thing I appreciate what George Lucas did was give us the prequel films and finished telling the story about how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, how the Clone Wars fit into what Obi-Wan and Princess Leia hinted at in A New Hope and how the galaxy got to the state that it's in.

While I do detest The Force Awakens, it's not because of why everyone else hates it. While I didn't like the film for remaking A New Hope, I detest J.J. Abrams and The Force Awakens because the movie didn't go into some kind of detail about the New Republic and how the characters got to where they are. J.J. Abrams obviously didn't feel that he needed a storyline because it felt that every actor was just making up the dialogue as they went along. While the movie ranks above The Phantom Menace, it still ranks at the bottom of my list as favored Star Wars films. Personally, it just doesn't measure up to the Star Wars films that have already been produced.

[Hardback247]

The Force Awakens got universally positive reviews from critics and audiences alike. I know that for a fact. But if that is true, then why is it that everywhere I go online, I always read online comments along the lines of "worst Star Wars movie ever," or something like that?

[Mighty Max]

Originally Posted by El_Fez

Amen, brotha! I put E7 well at the bottom of the Star Wars pile.

I don't like Abrams as a director. I didn't like Star Trek, Cloverfield, Mission Impossible or Lost. Lucas might not be the best at directing people, but it is a very good visual story teller. Abrams . . . not so much. I thought the climax was muddled and lacked focus. It had a couple of well composed shots - the opening moment right after the crawl and that sort of thing, but I think he is a very weak director.

Also Abram's fondness for being mysterious is bull. "Hey, how did you get Luke's saber?" "That's a story for another time." - no Abrams, that's kind of important information. You don't get to handwave something like that away.

Above and beyond the whole "It's a remake of New Hope", it leaned way too hard on the Nostalgia button, it tried way too hard to be "Look! We're the Star Wars you liked as a child! Please love us!"

Dovetailing to the "We're the Star Wars you love! There's no politics here!" it went too far in the other direction from the prequels, doing almost no world building. We have no context for what happened to the Empire and the Republic between Jedi and E7, no idea of it's a cold war, a shooting war or somewhere in between - and how the Resistance fits in there. From the context I guessed that it was some kind of french underground analog from WWII, and all of this was fleshed out in the ancillary material - but we needed some of this in the movie.

The soundtrack was not very good. Williams phoned in a not-very-memorable score that had one good track and was otherwise pretty tepid. Rey and Finn were okay, but the bad guy was just dull. And yes, the whole beat-for-beat remaking of New Hope bugs me. Why should I watch this when I have a much superior version already on DVD?

Interestingly, on my second viewing for R2, I felt way more sadness at the death of K2, the Kung Fu Master and his buddy - characters I've only been exposed to for a couple of hours - than I did when Han died.

On the other hand, I have never bought into the internet hive mind Group Think that E1-3 were terrible, unwatchable awful movies. At their worst, they're as inoffensive as every other big budget, big hollywood blockbuster these days. But honestly, they don't bug me.

Oh sure I could do with a little less Jar Jar at the climax, but I realize why he was there - comic relief for a series that was about to get super dark super fast. And comic relief has always been part of the series, from R2's pratfalls to Yoda as The Trickster. Is the romance awkward? Yes - but you have a slave turned jedi on one side a princess senator since she was 10 on the other - not a lot of time for socialization and human interaction, so of course it's going to be awkward and stilted. That's both backgrounds coming into play.

It's a little like Superman 3 vs Man of Steel or Star Trek 5 vs Neo Trek. Yes Superman 3 and Trek 5 are not very good - but quality of the film aside, you look at Superman and go "Yeah, I still see the character amid the bad movie" or "Okay, that's the Kirk and Spock and McCoy triangle that I know from way back". Where with Man of Steel and Neo-Trek, you get the outward appearance of the character, but none of the heart or soul.

Same thing with 1-3 vs 7. Phantom Menace might be a worse film (I disagree, but for the sake of argument, lets say this is so), but it still feels right, feels like Star Wars. E7 looks like a Star Wars film, but doesn't feel like it to me.

This is everything I've been saying since I saw the movie on opening day!
I had a few more issues than what is written here though...
But you typed this out better than I ever did.
Nor had I typed it out in one post.

[ElectricPeterTork]

Originally Posted by Hardback247

The Force Awakens got universally positive reviews from critics and audiences alike. I know that for a fact. But if that is true, then why is it that everywhere I go online, I always read online comments along the lines of "worst Star Wars movie ever," or something like that?

It's the internet. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

[Hardback247]

Originally Posted by ElectricPeterTork

It's the internet. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

And yet "the internet" also claims on IMDb that it's worthy of an 8.2 rating.

[ElectricPeterTork]

Originally Posted by Hardback247

And yet "the internet" also claims on IMDb that it's worthy of an 8.2 rating.

People who like to complain are more vocal than those who liked it?