Fury Road, explicit feminist influence. Awesome movie by "objective" standards.
https://time.com/3850323/mad-max-fury-road-eve-ensler-feminist/

I did not start with ontological bullshit. You all here did. I just joined the party. As soon as you start to argue about what makes a movie good, what is good, what is feminism, what makes Star Wars movie Star Wars movie etc. you are moving to the field of ontology, or the study of being as being. You claim that feminist influence is a (or the) reason why TLJ is a bad movie. I want you to show me its necessity, because I don't see one.

Where? Article doesn't mention a single thing that was influenced by Eve Ensler.

No.

I've alredy wrote in earlier comment.

There's so much potential there, it really is a shame. It will go down as a glaring example of the need to plan a series and have creative voices that are on the same page. Though they're all relatively huge hits at the box office, so who knows if Disney will learn anything or replace Kennedy. We can only hope.

A little OT but if you enjoy American Graffiti, please check out Big Wednesday by John Milius (Dir Conan, Writer Apocalypse Now). It's a somewhat forgotten coming-of-age movie set in Southern California around the same time and IMHO very close to the same level as Lucas' film. Milius, Lucas, and Coppola were all quite close friends... in fact Lucas was originally supposed to direct Apocalypse Now.

Yes! I didn't mention that because few people have seen it, but glad you led the charge! Yes, THX 1138 is a great movie.

Most "good" directors have a very short shelf-life where they ride the zeitgeist. Often that won't last beyond a decade... two at the most. After that they can certainly still make movies, but often they don't jive with the mood or tastes of the audience. Age, boredom, priorities, tastes (personal vs societal) are all a factor. A few greats like Scorsese or Spielberg can keep making vital work, but most just "fade" from the scene after the zeitgeist moves on.

I have a friend who did a lot of work at Lucasfilm... most of it "silent" but some credited. He's now an A-list name and wanted to work on Star Wars. He seemed like a perfect fit. Too bad it never came to pass.

I'm not advocating a "culture war" at all... and actually kind of resent you taking my advocating for social politics to be left out of a mythic story as "culture war" rhetoric.

What I've been saying is that Lucas' Star Wars was not meant to delve into the modern political culture. It was not meant to be a tool. It was meant to be good vs evil in the most basic, simplistic terms... and that's why so many people across all politics responded to it. At the end of the day, Star Wars was made in such a way that it spoke to all persuasions and politics... and could be read academically as anything.

But the problem with mythic storytelling is...

... that although it feels simple, it's not particularly easy to craft. It takes careful thought and planning... something the modern Lucasfilm is not willing to do.

Hmm i had a blast listening to reviews from people. Like Shadversity and round tables talking about it. And the more they talk about 'force sucking' and the like it starts to sound like a porno :P

Only thing I have to say about this is: Favreau should be the guy, moving forward. He's done more in 8 episodes to repair fan ill will than all the millions of dollars that Disney threw into the new trilogy.

Aliens is a great movie... as is Terminator 2. Cameron set out to make social statements (unlike Star Wars), and did...

... but...

Cameron never simultaneously undermined beloved characters seemingly simply based on their gender...

... and...

his female characters are "real people," not thematic constructs

And TBH, no matter how great Cameron's films have been -- and they are great movies -- they are nothing compared to the Star Wars phenomenon that verges on religion.

an aside: think it's interesting that many feel Cameron disrespected his own characters with Terminator Dark Fate (Cameron co-wrote story).

I don't deny that, but any idiot/redshirt/stormtrooper can fight in battle. I am referring to her role in the story, her agency. She is more or less going along the events. She leaves Luke deal with their father; and as I recall, Han and Chewie had a bigger role in battle itself. But last time I watched RotJ was 4 or 5 years ago. My memory could be fuzzy.

At least she is a character though, which is more than I can say about Palpie's granddaughter!
Are you referring to potential from SW universe in general, or from the sequel trilogy?

Princess Leia Organa is a very strong character... she is strong and able to lead, fight, talk-back and tell-off anyone. Her Achilles' heel is that she loves Han -- whom she saves BTW.

I find it so strange that you would discount her as a strong character simply for not being the main character and / or protagonist. That seems like reductive reasoning...

... and in part that kind of thinking is responsible for Rey, a total thematic construct -- so powerful that she lacks humanity. Abrams tried to correct this, but it was half-measures in an already compromised story.

For being so adamant about bringing female characters to the forefront of Star Wars I'm just baffled by Lucasfilm Story Group's inability -- or outright refusal -- to create real female characters. And just as much I detest that they have framed the conversation as having to weaken male characters to have strong female characters. IMHO that makes no sense... to use that false dichotomy in 2019.

I wouldn't say she is a very strong character. She is mid tier in strength if you ask me, there are way stronger female characters, even in Star Wars (the villain of KotOR 2, for example). I stated this merely to show how she could be seen as not so strong female character. And I wouldn't say she is weak because she ain't protagonist - protagonist of Star Wars isn't Luke, it's Vader/Anakin, and Vader is significantly weak as character, that's what makes him tragic and interesting. Luke is also weak (and annoying) in first two films while he grows in strength (through adversity) through the trilogy.

Regarding Rey, I merely have first hand experience from TFA. I would say her romance with Kylo Ren is the only interesting thing about her. Other than that, she lacks a character or some kind of conflict (and I am not speaking about fight scenes) that makes her interesting.

actually it wasn't all him, but his vision was the main focus, he personally wrote 6 of the 8 episodes.

tell him to go to the original office that Gary Cooper and John Wayne started out at as an extra, that's how I got on, he is probably already registered with them, tell him to go in to "update" his profile so they see his face, you have to set an appointment to do that now. as an A-lister he will know the expression "Straight out of _______ _______" both words 7 letters and both beginning with the letter C.
Don't ask for any particular project but remind them he is there and see what happens.

out of sight, out of mind.

The prequels are literally about how a republic can dissolve into a dictatorship. Also, having some mild feminist themes is not "making it about modern politics." I reject your entire premise and ask that you stop throwing it at me. The problem is the movies are written bad. If they were written well, you wouldn't care that Poe got dressed down by a lady or that Rey had the same "inherently good at everything" status as Anakin did. Or maybe you would, which would be sad.

Both. The sequels absolutely had promise. They cast very good actors, they got the old stars back, they had good visual directors and other than a couple things I actually think the overall plot is good. The problem is all in the lack of planning, the writing and in hiring two strong creative voices who had radically different views on the material, with no strong producer to reign them in. It absolutely could have been done well.

Star Wars still has a ton of potential though either way. I liked Rogue One and Solo a lot, and The Mandalorian is great. People seem to agree with me on two of those, and with more shows and movies coming with hopefully better writers and planning, good stuff could be just around the corner.

On the last statement you made I would say yes, pretty much guaranteed, there will be a second live action series before too long, has my interest, sincerily.

Disney announced at the D23 Expo in August that Ewan McGregor will reprise his role of Obi-Wan Kenobi for a TV series at Disney Plus.

also:
Diego Luna will reprise his "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" role of Cassian Andor for a new prequel series. Alan Tudyk will also reprise his role as the robot K-2SO.

The series has been described as a "rousing spy thriller" that will "explore tales filled with espionage and daring missions to restore hope to a galaxy in the grip of a ruthless Empire."


Live action seems to be winning out these days with this particular series, starting with Rouge One, I didn't care for "Solo" myself though.

Sure it can, good propaganda has to be (and you should know this my Russian friend ;) ).
I have the result of the Brexit vote in my country to show how a well run coherent propaganda campaign can get the desired result, and that one was a good 10-15 years in the making!

Big Wednesday is one of my top ten films of all time (i grew up in the 'west-country' and surf) and on balance i find it a stronger film for character development and filmography vs American Graffiti.

The idea of Lucas (old pre-darkside fallen Lucas!) doing Apocalypse Now is interesting. Coppola made that an amazing film, and i'm not sure what it would have been with Lucas doing it?

The money aspect is a big problem (and i discussed this with a friend over xmas as we re-watched the originals), and why i claim that Star Wars is dead (in terms of what Star Wars was in the original trilogy), as you just can't have an opportunity to 'save' it in the current climate of Disney's financial success with it.

I have not seen the latest film yet (i got my info about it from the RLM review i linked earlier) but i own TFA on DVD (out of interest to see how JJ could mess it up in different ways compared to Lucas with the prequels!), and have seen the others at friends with less discerning Star Wars tastes than my own ;) Solo i have not seen. I do own (to my shame) all the prequels on DVD.

Honestly from my perspective they (New Star Wars) are all 'bad films'; all have terrible scripts with no seemingly clear direction to guide them, all have plots so clumsily driven as to be near incomprehensible, all use pace and special effects bling to (try to) gloss over the core weaknesses of the films (being able to tell interesting stories via interesting characters).

If i had to pick one (like on pain-of-death or something), i might go for the first one (TFA), just because at that point the less overall damage to 'Star Wars' had been done, and it was just a 130 mins of potential damage during it. As a Star Wars fan (that wants to see good Star Wars films) that is important to me.

As an aside i just finished watching the original trilogy over the xmas period, it's kind of a family tradition, and i also have access to the original release films (not the enhanced versions where Greedo shoots at Han first etc) so we could enjoy them at their best.

I also watched the last prequel just to remind me of how bad the chemistry was between two of the prequels main characters (Anakin and Amidala) and just how poor the 'best' of the prequels really is vs the original trilogy. It did not disappoint.