Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi (spoilers)

[Jon]

It was a naked commercial decision that, as far as I know, paid off.

Movies with lots of action are easier to sell overseas, I'm told. And, as we've discussed before, the reason there are so many sequels, reboots, and movies based on well-known books, TV shows, or comics (or theme park rides or board games...) is because its hard to attract eye-balls and "generate buzz" for a completely new idea, and if it's costing $100m or more to make - as these genre movies usually do - then studios are afraid to bet on it, especially since they insist on it making a lot the first weekend.

On the other hand, it feels like Rotten Tomato and Metacritic scores are starting to have a big influence on opening weekend numbers. Justice League, for example, didn't do very well because the reviews weren't great and maybe the time of year wasn't ideal. But 20 or 30 years ago, that would have been an easy #1 first weekend.* Will Smith, perhaps the only big star I've heard who is honest about his interest in marketing movies and having big hits, has discussed this. Maybe that creates a bigger incentive for studios to worry more about the quality of the movie rather than building creating artificial "buzz," but I doubt it, because I don't know if studio people are honest with themselves when they're about to put out a movie that isn't really that good. For example, Justice League just wasn't finished, really. But to delay the opening would have looked bad and caused their stock (Warner or whatever they're called now) to go down.


*There's some talk, however, that Rotten Tomatoes can be gamed by bots, but I don't now if that's true (yet). And in the case of something like the new Ghostbusters, MRA-boys gave it bad reviews even before it came out (as it turned out, it wasn't very good, but not because of the women in it). I pay more attention to metacritic and look beyond the composite score. Some films can get a mediocre score because some critics loved it and some hated it. Others can get the same score because nobody really liked it or hated it. Films in the former group are obviously more interesting.

Warner Brothers also have a minority stake in Rotten Tomatoes. There was a lot of talk at the time of the Justice League's release of trying to delay the release of the rating of the film until as late as possible. It's not just Rotten Tomatoes that have a stake in an opening weekend though. Essentially, by Friday night, after the first people have gone to see it, a positive or negative buzz will be created online which goes a long way to dictating how well the film will do.

[Jon]

That Andrew Potter article resonated greatly with me. I too, saw Star Wars aged 7 and it played a part in shaping me and my friends' lives for the next few years. And yes, I have to admit I only really go and see these new Star Wars films to debate their merits or lack of them with these self-same friends. (I have also just sent them a link to the article).

Good point about it being Luke's story. I was always a Han Solo guy. Or was I? Maybe not. Certainly, as the trilogy went on and Han got the girl and most of the jokes and plus he always was much cooler, I preferred Han. But Hamill is perfect for that role in the first film. However, like I said upthread, he never convinced me as an all-powerful Jedi or in his new hermit role either.

[Lang Spoon]

it's not just a commercial decision though really is it? I've never read the hobbit, but I did read the lord of the rings, and one thing that struck me about the movies, is that they can cram 16 pages of tolkein nonsense into a meaningful look by gandalf, and stretch a six line description of a fight into a 25 minute battle. Books are great at lots of things, but if you're going to have fight scenes, they're really only good for telling you what a particular character is thinking or feeling at a particular point. you can reallly stretch it out with action sequences.

the other thing, (I can't remember if i read it here or on facebook) but there are families in New zealand where the second generation is now working with their father making Orc costumes and elf armour on Lord of the rings. it's like a bloody industry down there ate this stage.

Fuck sake. Have some pride, New Zealand. Wouldn’t mind cosplay elf steampunk deathmatches to replace boxing post Brexit.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I mean't more something like shipbuilding in 1910's belfast. Peter jackson must be one of the major employers in the country at this stage.

[Hot Pepsi]

it's not just a commercial decision though really is it? I've never read the hobbit, but I did read the lord of the rings, and one thing that struck me about the movies, is that they can cram 16 pages of tolkein nonsense into a meaningful look by gandalf, and stretch a six line description of a fight into a 25 minute battle. Books are great at lots of things, but if you're going to have fight scenes, they're really only good for telling you what a particular character is thinking or feeling at a particular point. you can reallly stretch it out with action sequences.

the other thing, (I can't remember if i read it here or on facebook) but there are families in New zealand where the second generation is now working with their father making Orc costumes and elf armour on Lord of the rings. it's like a bloody industry down there ate this stage.

It didn't need to be three movies. The original animated version from the 70s, which I loved and would love to see again if possible, managed to do it in one film.

[Hot Pepsi]

The other thing, (I can't remember if i read it here or on facebook) but there are families in New zealand where the second generation is now working with their father making Orc costumes and elf armour on Lord of the rings. it's like a bloody industry down there ate this stage.

That sounds like a great life, to be honest.

[hobbes]

I think "I would have liked that a lot more as a series, even as a limited series." Like Netflix' Bright...

Whereas in hindsight, I'd have been much happier if they'd done it as a 10 minute short. Or if I'd only watched the trailer.

It was a naked commercial decision that, as far as I know, paid off.

Would have to look at sales figures etc, but certainly for most people I know after the first two they couldn't be bothered with the third. LoTR I happily watched 3 or 4 times. I had to force myself to summon the energy to watch the 3rd Hobbit film and even then I wished I hadn't bothered. I can't imagine the DVD sales were anything like as good as for LoTR. (Although I suppose they still must have made money.)

[hobbes]

I was always a Han Solo guy.

Yeah, me too.
I love the Star Wars films. LOVE them. For all the reasons Andrew Potter mentioned and because I've always been a sucker for space and sci-fi etc.
But I try not to think about them too hard, because if I do I tend to realise that there is at least 30 minutes in each of the 3 originals that bore the arse off me. And those bits are all the Luke Skywalker storylines.
Tattooine? Dull as shit. Only gets good when Han appears.
Dagobah? Fuck off and get back to the Falcon
Death Star 2? Piss off Luke. Just kill the motherfuckers and be done with it.
So I sort of pretend to myself I love all the films unconditionally, but I'd be more than happy compressing the 3 films into 2 and losing that whiny prick altogether. (Although of course then the story wouldn't work at all.)

[anton pulisov]

Yeah all that farting around with Yoda on Dagobah and trying to lift rocks bored the pants off of me as a kid. And still does.

In the prequels, George Lucas took all the boring bits from the original trilogy and turned them into 8 hours of torture. Although The Phantom Menace was OK, because McGregor and Neeson are such good actors and Hayden Christensen hadn't arrived yet.

During Attack of the Clones I had to leave the cinema for about 15 minutes due to a dodgy curry, and when I came back I realised that nothing whatsoever had happened.

[hobbes]

The pod race was the only bit of the first film I can stomach at all. I was quite hopeful to start with then someone offers someone a cigarette - sorry "deathstick" in a "hey kids, smoking's baaaaad m'kay" sort of a way and it went to shit from there.

[Hot Pepsi]

Whereas in hindsight, I'd have been much happier if they'd done it as a 10 minute short. Or if I'd only watched the trailer.


Would have to look at sales figures etc, but certainly for most people I know after the first two they couldn't be bothered with the third. LoTR I happily watched 3 or 4 times. I had to force myself to summon the energy to watch the 3rd Hobbit film and even then I wished I hadn't bothered. I can't imagine the DVD sales were anything like as good as for LoTR. (Although I suppose they still must have made money.)

I'm still pretty sure they made more profit than they would have from just one or two films and I suspect they got a lot of economies of scale from doing them all at once in New Zealand with the same people.

[Hot Pepsi]

Essentially, by Friday night, after the first people have gone to see it, a positive or negative buzz will be created online which goes a long way to dictating how well the film will do.

Jon, this is absolutely true and i should have mentioned it. Will Smith says that in that interview I sorta referenced. He mentioned people tweeting from the theater, which is probably not literally the case very often but certainly people go online right after they see it and some of those people have a following. I still prefer to read professional critics, though I tend to like movies more than they do. It's also possible now to hear the opinions of other filmmakers/actors, which are usually interesting even if I find them unpersuasive.

I don't find TV critics to be very useful though. They watch stuff for a living so it's not really taking up their precious time to follow a show. There are a lot of shows that are pretty good but not good enough for me to watch them week after week.

[Hot Pepsi]

The pod race was the only bit of the first film I can stomach at all. I was quite hopeful to start with then someone offers someone a cigarette - sorry "deathstick" in a "hey kids, smoking's baaaaad m'kay" sort of a way and it went to shit from there.

All of the films have cool parts that look amazing, though the original series and the new series are especially good at the "old future," where you see stuff like an old star destroyer wrecked and being picked over, and the ass end of nowhere, as far as this galactic civilization is concerned, like Mos Eisley. The prequels were trying to make everything look bright and fancy, like people in the middle ages reading about the glory of Rome, but either the CGI just wasn't quite good enough or they just over did it, because they don't look as good or believable, for lack of a better word, as even the original series where there really wasn't much CGI to be had.

[Bored Of Education]

Yeah, me too.
I love the Star Wars films. LOVE them. For all the reasons Andrew Potter mentioned and because I've always been a sucker for space and sci-fi etc.
But I try not to think about them too hard, because if I do I tend to realise that there is at least 30 minutes in each of the 3 originals that bore the arse off me. And those bits are all the Luke Skywalker storylines.
Tattooine? Dull as shit. Only gets good when Han appears.
Dagobah? Fuck off and get back to the Falcon
Death Star 2? Piss off Luke. Just kill the motherfuckers and be done with it.
So I sort of pretend to myself I love all the films unconditionally, but I'd be more than happy compressing the 3 films into 2 and losing that whiny prick altogether. (Although of course then the story wouldn't work at all.)

This - although I am not sure I would be so harsh on Luke. People are going on about Kylo Ren being whiny prick and yet we put up with Luke Skywalker in the first three films. He starts off as a spoilt whining brat and, after that, he is pretty much overshadowed by every other main character - Han, Leia, Vader and even Chewbacca, r2-d2 and C3PO. Even the attempts to make him seem darker in the latter two films don't do enough to wipe the idea that he is the lost member of the Partridge Family.

Kylo Ren, on the other hand, isn't as cool and evil as Vader because he isn't anywhere near the position that Vader was in the first three films.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

BE, kylo ren is pretty much the overlord of the galaxy, with a huge military machine at his personal disposal. The problem is that you can see his face, and he talks far too much.

All of the films have cool parts that look amazing, though the original series and the new series are especially good at the "old future," where you see stuff like an old star destroyer wrecked and being picked over, and the ass end of nowhere, as far as this galactic civilization is concerned, like Mos Eisley. The prequels were trying to make everything look bright and fancy, like people in the middle ages reading about the glory of Rome, but either the CGI just wasn't quite good enough or they just over did it, because they don't look as good or believable, for lack of a better word, as even the original series where there really wasn't much CGI to be had.

Is it that, or to extend the rome analogy a lot of the prequels take place in Rome, and visit the capitals of hispania and alexandria, while the original series and the most recent series take place in the equivalent of the forests of germania, and the northern sahara. Rome still exists, you just don't go near it. Indeed civilized worlds only appear in these movies in the cross hairs of the Death star.

[Hot Pepsi]

Is it that, or to extend the rome analogy a lot of the prequels take place in Rome, and visit the capitals of hispania and alexandria, while the original series and the most recent series take place in the equivalent of the forests of germania, and the northern sahara. Rome still exists, you just don't go near it. Indeed civilized worlds only appear in these movies in the cross hairs of the Death star.

That's true. But Corsicant and what not just didn't look as "real" as the outer planets.

As for Darth vs Kylo. Recall in the first Star Wars: A New Hope that Tarkin doesn't ever, as far as I can recall, defer to DV.

Recall this bit:

Don't try to frighten us with your
sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your
sad devotion to that ancient religion
has not helped you conjure up the
stolen data tapes, or given you
clairvoyance enough to find the
Rebel's hidden fort...

Suddenly Motti chokes and starts to turn blue under Vader's
spell.

VADER
I find your lack of faith disturbing.

TARKIN
Enough of this! Vader, release him!

VADER
As you wish.

Later DV says he can feel his "old master" and Tarkin dismisses that. "The Jedi are extinct, their fire has gone out of the universe. You, my friend, are all that's left of their religion." He's pretty casual with him - calling him friend - disagreeing with him about what he feels and doesn't seem worried about the Force. He also calls the Jedi a "religion" as opposed to a threat or a type of knight or a police force or anything like that. He is a hard-headed military man who believes in technology (and, of course, the conflict of technology vs spirtuality is one of the big themes, as it is in Tolkien and a lot of fantasy stories from the 20th century.)

So during A New Hope, Darth Vader clearly isn't in charge and, at least until he starts doing the force choke, the generals kinda resent him and his silly Force nonsense. He's clearly the Emperor's guy in the room, sort of like the political commissar - like the Nazis and Soviets had (maybe the Chinese too?), I guess, and military guys always hate the fucking political guy.

It's really a shame Tarkin was killed. He's a great character and really personifies what the empire is mostly all about.

Anyway. He gets blown up with the Death Star and, to some extent, Vader's opinion that they shouldn't be putting all their eggs in the Death Star basket was vindicated (but they didn't fucking learn).

But at the start of ESB, the military is starting to either accept his Force intuition, or are sufficiently afraid of getting choked not to doubt him.

VADER
(studying the image
on the console screen)
That's it. The Rebels are there.

OZZEL
My lord, there are so many uncharted
settlements. It could be smugglers,
it could be...

VADER
That is the system. And I'm sure
Skywalker is with them. Set your
course for the Hoth system. General
Veers, prepare you men.

And then they attack Hoth. No more doubts. And the fact that the Rebels were there no doubt increased Vader's clout.

By ROTJ, we see that the military guys are more afraid of the Emperor than DV, but he still has the choke thing.


Now Kylo, as far as I can recall, isn't quite as impulsive with the choke thing. And Hux actually speaks directly to Snoke, not just through Ren. Whereas, with Vader and Palpatine, I dont' recall the Emperor ever directly giving orders to anyone other than Vader and his red guys.

Also, Kylo is one of the "knights of Ren." That's not entirely explained. Is he the first among equals? Is he the top KOR? Are there others who want his job? Unknown.

But Hux still thinks he's in charge and clearly resents Ren. Recall that Hux was about to kill Ren when he was briefly knocked out after Snoke was cut in two. And Hux and on the battle of the mining planet Crait, Ren jockey for position to decide who is really in charge until Ren chucks him against a wall and knocks him out.

So at the end, Ren is clearly in charge of the First Order, but Hux still thinks he is, or hopes to be. So he isn't as powerful as Vader was at his peak. He's getting there, but he's not there yet. He's still too conflicted and can't control his anger.

It's not clear what Ren will do next. His main objectives in life - killing Luke and killing Snoke - are done. Or, at least, Luke is dead. He killed his dad. He may now want to completely break free of the past by killing his mom, but Carrie Fisher died so I don't know how that will be in the story. Does he still want to try to lure Rey to his side? Or kill her too.

[anton pulisov]

VADER
I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Love that line. I can hear James Earl Jones saying it in my head.

God, they should never have made those prequels.

Darth Trump

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I think the dynamic between Darth Vader and tarkin and the emperor is supposed to be very different to the later movies. Tarkin has been an ally of the emperor since he was a young man, and has no interest in challenging the emperor, so he is supposed to be the human in charge of the nuts and bolts of running the whole empire, and Darth Vader who could challenge the emperor, (And is eventually supposed to kill the emperor and take over) is basically treated as the emperor's dog, who troubleshoots things for the emperor, while Peter Cushing is keeping the whole show on the road. (the emperor is also planning on killing darth vader and replacing him with luke, so there is also that dynamic) I also don't know if the military people would have been so snotty to Darth Vader if they weren't the immediate underlings of Tarkin. We effectively see Darth Vader at headquarters. If he was out in the field, they would probably be kissing his arse like in the later movies. Tarkin also speaks directly to the emperor in the movie doesn't he?

Hux on the other hand is way younger, and so is their "empire" they only started fighting people the week before. Whereas when we turn up in the first movie, Tarkin has been effectively running the galaxy for 20 years. Hux thinks he still has a chance of being the big boss.

I still think that 90% of the impact of Darth Vader is that he doesn't really speak, (and when he does he drains cool) and you can't see his face. That Bobba Fett character is also enormously popular, and he's only in three or four scenes, doesn't speak a word, and you never see his face.

[Jon]

Every time I read about the Phantom Menace I have to listen this Peter Serafinowicz interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0wHqNi3x5M

[Patrick Thistle]

Boba Fett is ace. Then they redubbed him in the DVD releases of Empire with the Maori guy who played Jango Fett in Episode II. Because accents are cloned too I guess.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

That serafinowicz interview just reminded me of just how fucking racist that movie was. It made lord of the rings look like a sly and the family stone concert.

I think George just never really came to terms with how others (including his ex wife) completely saved the first movie, and how other people wrote and directed the other star wars movies. He wasn't going to make that mistake again, that's why he wrote and directed all three prequels, and by christ it showed. He had no-one to take the story away from him and fix it, and he had no Harrison ford to tell him "george, You can write this shit but you sure can't say it."

he really needed someone to say that to him. Or at the very least have the slave holding the laurel wreath over his head repeatedly say "remember you are only a man" in gungan.

[hobbes]

and he had no Harrison ford to tell him "george, You can write this shit but you sure can't say it."

Which is madness as you only have to do one speech - best man speech etc. to realise that. Stuff that's hilarious written down can be absolutely impossible to deliver.

[Patrick Thistle]

Best thing that happened to Star Wars was it got taken away from the man who created it.

The same thing needs to happen to both Alien and Blade Runner.

[Patrick Thistle]

Just to pick up on TAB's criticisms of how Rey sounds. That's just a Jakku accent.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Is that how she pronounces Jacket?