Star Wars: The Last Jedi

[garhkal]

Gave up on Star Trek after the ridiculous Wrath of Khan remake. I know some here like the new series, but as far as I'm concerned its complete shit at this point.

Star Trek (2009): decent w\bonus points for Urban's McCoy

Star Trek Into Darkness: borderline fair, and still bonus points for Urban

Star Trek Beyond: foul feces

Where as i would put the 09 trek on top, like you. BUT i'd put beyond a little ahead of into darkness.

[T. Foster]

I liked Star Trek Beyond the best of the reboot movies, because even though it was a dumb, loud action movie and that's not what Star Trek is supposed to be, at least it was its own story and not some meta-quasi-reimagining that kept rubbing my face in how it was the same but also different. Watching ST:Beyond I was mostly able to forget that we're in some alternate timeline and just enjoy a new adventure of some old familiar characters, even though they're now played by different actors.

[Welleran]

The very thought that Tarantino may do the next Star Trek makes me wretch. (I’d say the other new ones did too, but I stopped watching after the first one)

[Geoffrey]

I liked Star Trek Beyond the best of the reboot movies, because even though it was a dumb, loud action movie and that's not what Star Trek is supposed to be, at least it was its own story and not some meta-quasi-reimagining that kept rubbing my face in how it was the same but also different. Watching ST:Beyond I was mostly able to forget that we're in some alternate timeline and just enjoy a new adventure of some old familiar characters, even though they're now played by different actors.

I thoroughly agree.

The temporal setting of the film (i. e., immediately after the 79 original episodes) was a happy choice. I like to regard it as the crew's eightieth adventure, one certainly not as engaging as some ("Balance of Terror" et al) but more so than others ("The Empath" et al).

[garhkal]

The very thought that Tarantino may do the next Star Trek makes me wretch. (I’d say the other new ones did too, but I stopped watching after the first one)

Me too.. While Tarantino's had a few good movies, he certainly is NOT Trek material.

[Matthew]

Just heard that there's going to be more of these Star Wars movies, and now it's the GoT creators helming them.

I am concerned about this, mainly because of the shoddy writing on display in the last two seasons of Game of Thrones since they ran out of books. My confidence in them as writers is very low, though they seem to do a good job in other respects.

[TRP]

Just heard that there's going to be more of these Star Wars movies, and now it's the GoT creators helming them.

I am concerned about this, mainly because of the shoddy writing on display in the last two seasons of Game of Thrones since they ran out of books. My confidence in them as writers is very low, though they seem to do a good job in other respects.

Part of the problem could be their lack of involvement over the past couple of GoT seasons, because they shifted focus to developing, and then running, Westworld. The first season of Westworld was all new material, and it was well-written. So, they are capable of writing, or supervising the writing of, good stuff. Running out of material + not keeping a close eye on the writer's room obviously produced a couple of very disappointing Got seasons. Maybe the first movie, or two, will be good, and then there'll be a drop off when they lose interest.

What they may give us is a good sci-fi movie, but will it be a Star Wars movie? I'll admit, if "Beyond" had not been preceded by "Star Trek", I may not have rated it as foul feces.

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Star Trek Beyond was fine, for much the same reason that The Last Jedi was fine:- that was the point where they stopped retelling the same story and made something new.

[garhkal]

So.. Let's say for the next batch of films they seem to be hell bent on doing, where they are going outside the skywalker family.. They decided to make the xwing novels into films.

Who would you have in these roles..
Rebels;
Wedge - Brandon Rooth (from Superman returns/legends of tomorrow/arrow)
Captain Tycho Celchu - Steven Browder imo would make a good one, or Mr Falon (the guy from Castle).
Lieutenant Corran Horn
Ooryl Qrygg
Nawara Ven - Issah washington (from many things!)
Rhysati Ynr
Bror Jace - Bob Moorley (from the 100)
Erisi Dlarit - Marie Avgeropoulos (from the 100)
Peshk Vri'syk
Gavin Darklighter - Franz Drameh (from legends of tomorrow)
Riv Shiel
Lujayne Forge - Katie Cassidy
Andoorni Hui


The Terriks;
Booster - John Goodman
Mirax -


Imperials;
Ysanne Isard, Director of Imperial Intelligence - Jessica Chastain
Kirtan Loor, Intelligence Agent - Cumberbach
General Evir Derricote - Paul blackthorn

[josh]

I am concerned about this, mainly because of the shoddy writing on display in the last two seasons of Game of Thrones since they ran out of books. My confidence in them as writers is very low, though they seem to do a good job in other respects.

I share Matthew's sentiment. So far, these guys have displayed aptitude at refining established stories more than at trying to craft their own. Analysis of their upcoming The Man in the High Plantation (aka. Confederate) should also help foretell how creative they are.

A live-action Star Wars series has been in plans for a long time, intention was announced around the release of Dave Filoni's Clone Wars. Lucas claimed he wanted an animated series and a live-action series. One can hope a solid premise/story has also been around awhile, creating a ball with which the GoT chaps can run.

Gave up on Star Trek after the ridiculous Wrath of Khan remake. I know some here like the new series, but as far as I'm concerned its complete shit at this point.

Tarantino is a Trek fan, he made compelling points in his interview where this all started. I would like to see his crack at the franchise. I doubt he could do worse than half of all the motion pictures and almost the entire first season of TNG/DS9/Voyager/Enterprise. Discovery has been averaging 7.9 on IMDB. No past Star Trek series has opened that strong (Original series averages 7.7, but to be fair, this is only a single episode away from Balance of Terror). If you get a chance, check it out. If you still don't like it, that's okay, some people don't like AD&D.

[Blackadder23]

In any event, a director is supposed to catch these things and get everyone on the same page. But those movies didn't have a director; they had George Lucas.

I recall hearing of an interview with Lucas where he stated he never corrected actor pronunciations. He claimed it was a big galaxy, and dialects differed everywhere. He let actors say whatever they wanted. I know all the 90s videogames had varied pronunciations. Coruscant was pronounced Koruskant. As long as you said something remotely close to how it was written, Lucas didn't care.

I think 3PO should've "translated" every "mispronunciation" like a passive-aggressive pronunciation nazi.

That sounds a lot like the argument Lucas made that the prequels were nonsensical garbage (I'm paraphrasing a bit) because they were written for ten year olds. Because of course ten year olds care a lot about poorly-defined trade disputes and five dull scenes in a row of people sitting around in rooms talking.

I know plenty of people with different dialects, including some who have English as a second language, and they still manage to pronounce the names of friends and acquaintances approximately the same. Thus I do not buy that Leia and Lando would pronounce Han Solo's first name very differently, or that Padme's handmaiden/doppelganger* and husband would pronounce her name very differently (which they do - I made sure I hadn't eaten recently and forced myself to check). These are close companions who would have learned their friend's preferred pronunciation (whatever it is). So I'm not buying this post facto rationalization at all.

Lucas is a lazy, sloppy director who nevertheless managed to direct two great films: American Graffiti and the original (i.e., real) Star Wars. He also was involved with a few other films (such as Raiders of the Lost Ark) which turned out great despite having his slimy paws on them in some capacity. Other films that feature his involvement have ranged from poor (Howard the Duck) to risible (Crystal Skull) to Geneva Convention violation (the prequels). This is pretty much the track record I would expect from a producer with no sense of proportion, a director too lazy and sloppy to get his actors on the same page, and a writer who makes Bulwer-Lytton look like Faulkner-Hemingway.

(I really like your C3PO idea, and certainly would have accepted it as a substitute for Lucas actually getting off his ass and doing his job as director. But of course including it would have required Lucas to have a sense of humor and a sense of proportion, for which... see above.)

* - An idiotic plot point with no real rationale or purpose in the story**. Vintage Lucas, in other words.

** - I expect someone is going to say, "It was in case the Federation of Hideously Embarrassing Asian Stereotypes*** stopped the ship." I'm very sure the FOHEAS would have said, "You're dressed like the Queen, so you're under arrest. Everyone else is free to go." Then again, Padme was stupid enough to marry Anakin, so maybe she would have been stupid enough to believe that. Objection withdrawn.

*** - I suppose Lucas would recycle the "different dialects" argument here as well. Fair enough. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the greedy aliens who relied on robotics sounded Asian, the greedy alien with the large nose sounded Semitic, and the idiot tripping over his own feet had what sounded like a third grader's idea of a Jamaican accent (nor was this last one limited to Jar-Jar - the Gun-Gun**** Chief, or whatever the hell he was, had a somewhat more dignified version of a third grader's idea of a Jamaican accent).

**** - I'm aware that it's spelled "Gungan" (because that's so much less stupid). At the time that Phantom Menace was originally perpetrated, Lucas stated that the name of this obnoxious species was inspired by his two year old***** child saying "Gun-Gun" (apropos of exactly what, I'm not sure). I decided to adopt this spelling to honor the clearly more talented idea person in the family.

***** - Had the child been ten, he or she would have qualified to serve as a focus group for the films. Actually, I think that happened anyway.

[Falconer]

How Timothy Zahn obviously intended it to be pronounced.

[josh]

Agreed, Blackadder. I believe it was Lucas' style that was a point of contention with Kershner during Episode V, and what caused Kershner to never want to make a similar* movie again. From what I recall, Lucas didn't understand why Kershner needed to do so many takes for a scene. Lucas felt the filming was progressing too slow, and badgered Kershner.

Empire is my favorite. I see The Last Jedi as a negative image of Empire. Perhaps this bias helped me enjoy watching TLJ, despite its glaring weaknesses.

* - I don't remember if Kershner said something like, he never wanted to do the middle-part of a trilogy again, or he never wanted to do a Star Wars film again. Regardless, he never did either again!

[Falconer]

[Blackadder23]

Agreed, Blackadder. I believe it was Lucas' style that was a point of contention with Kershner during Episode V, and what caused Kershner to never want to make a similar* movie again. From what I recall, Lucas didn't understand why Kershner needed to do so many takes for a scene. Lucas felt the filming was progressing too slow, and badgered Kershner.

Empire is my favorite. I see The Last Jedi as a negative image of Empire. Perhaps this bias helped me enjoy watching TLJ, despite its glaring weaknesses.

* - I don't remember if Kershner said something like, he never wanted to do the middle-part of a trilogy again, or he never wanted to do a Star Wars film again. Regardless, he never did either again!

I also remember reading that ESB screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan was asked to turn in a script for Phantom Menace and declined (although he at least wasn't done with Star Wars). I don't blame either man for washing his hands of George Lucas collaborations.