OOTS #1219 - The Discussion Thread

[understatement]

Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker? I've following OotS long enough to know the considerable hatred many people on the forum apparently feel for those.

Coming from someone who watched the sequel trilogy before the originals or prequels (blasphemous, I know), it was pretty surprising to see how much vitriol the movies got (specifically, The Last Jedi).

[Petrocorus]

Also her other major series, the "Five Gods Universe", a fantasy work which is awesome in somewhat different ways. She's spending most of her time on that one these days. Those two series were the winners of the first two Hugo awards for best series..

I still have to read the last books of it, but i definitely want to adapt the quintarian religion into D&D.

Oh, absolutely. I like how he praises himself for his "mystery boxes". That's just frigging lazy writing. Sure, sometimes, mystery and ambiguity can be intentional and good, but that's not what this guy is doing.

I need to share this: 5 Reasons Movies Keep Getting Worse

[Goblin_Priest]

Coming from someone who watched the sequel trilogy before the originals or prequels (blasphemous, I know), it was pretty surprising to see how much vitriol the movies got (specifically, The Last Jedi).

The Force Awakens would have been fine on its own. My issues with it are twofold: 1) it didn't stand on its own, and heavily recycled stuff form A New Hope. It was blatantly "let's redo that thing that worked". Second, it set up a whole bunch of questions, with no intent on every giving any of these satisfying answers, because, at the time, "it'll be another director's problem". So as a stand-alone, it comes off as a stale copy of something else, and as a part of a greater trilogy, it really doesn't grant much vision or direction into where things are going. And, I mean... Starkiller base? It was bad enough we had a second death star in RotJ, but now this third one? But you know, bigger, because... why, exactly?

And you know, the more I think of it, the more I have issues with it. I totally get why someone who watched it first would deem it fine. But it did /not/ come first. They changed so much stuff since where the franchise left off, and never bothered to explain any of it. Why is Luke gone? What happened to the Empire? Wait, why is the New Republic such a mess? What the hell is the First Order?

A New Hope could get away with not really establishing who the good guys and the bad guys were because it was an original movie, in an original setting. There were no expectations. Sequels are built on expectations, and you can't just ignore them.

The two other movies are distinctively worse, though, and many of the failings should also be apparent to a newcomer in the franchise. To more established fans, the more egregious tends to be the introduction of new powers that would completely upset the predecessor stories. The rules of a setting are generally expected to be internally consistent. The Last Jedi just throws this all out the window. But even if you don't care about jedi skype-fighting, flying through space, or summoning lightning (as ghosts, no less), all stuff that could really be useful in the war. And hyperspace kamikaze... If Holdo was gonna do that, why not do it with an x-wing? But even all that aside... why is Holdo being such a prick all the time? Why can the good guys not escape this chase, but the heroes can easily hyperspace out to do side missions and then just come back? Why won't the First Order just hyperspace a few miles ahead, at least one ship, to either get into firing range or to block off the escape?

So much of that film is contrived... even as a standalone, out of its franchise, it would be a terrible film. TRoS was doomed to be trash, because TLJ just shat on everything set up in TFA, leaving nothing to work with. So it just does a 180 on TLJ's 180. But two wrongs don't make a right. Also, the emperor was announced on Fortnite... Fortnite, bruh. And then the only explanation it got was someone saying "somehow". Please. And the location of the mcguffin being shown by a dagger...? The whole movie is so stupid, and doesn't even try to be good. It just wants to pander.

[mormon_soldier]

Goblin Priest, I love you.

[eaglewingz]

EDIT: Another old-timey distinction I should mention is "Trekker" vs. "Trekkie".

Old-timey as in before ST:TMP came out? In my family (and everyone I knew who liked Trek), "Trekkie" was the term. I don't recall "Trekker" becoming common until the movies and TNG went more mainstream and fans wanted to sound more serious.

[Petrocorus]

The Force Awakens .....snipped for size...... It just wants to pander.

This is a good summary of the issues with the sequel trilogy.

Though i do think people in general are too harsh on TLJ and not harsh enough on TFA.

The lack of context and story-building in TFA already doomed the trilogy. TLJ would have needed to dedicate 30 to 60 of screen time just to fix this, answer the more pressing questions, and setting up some answers for TRoS.

Some of the elements of TLJ which are considered as issues could have been good if the execution had been good. For instance, killing the decoy (and uninteresting) BBEG to let the dragon becomes the new BBEG is a perfectly serviceable plot device in theory.

OTOH, some elements of TFA are really bad on their own, even without the need to build a trilogy. The Starkiller base has several issues, but the main one is its ability to shoot at and destroy planets in other star systems, maybe dozen, if not hundreds of light-years away with one ray splitting into several really breaks the suspension of disbelief IMHO. Even in a franchise which always has been fuzzy (to say the least) with space distance and speed.

[KorvinStarmast]

J. J. Abrams sucks, you say? Why, I happen to agree!

Like a Hoover vacuum cleaner ...

Also are we going to discuss the delineation between hard sci-fi and alt-history?

Let's not and say we did.

I thought rogue one was pretty good

Yes, that one felt right.

I enjoyed Rogue One too, the only thing from Disney which I liked. I did not watch the Mandalorian, though, so maybe that's good too.

It's OK but the pacing is uneven, and it is obviuosly made for TV. And it has Giancarlo Esposito in it: so I love it by default.
Solo: good in some moments, atrocious in others.

TESB, on the other hand, veers way off expectations, with the main bad guy being the good guy's dad, and the bad guys winning. How often do you see the bad guys win a movie like that? Pretty rare. And yet, it's praised as many as the best movie of the franchise.

It was good. Return of the Jedi would have been better with a planet full of wookies, not those {censored} ewoks.

Oh: Jar Jar binks was totally a rip off of Snarfquest. (a Dragon Magazine comic)

"Trekkie" was the term.

Yes, yes it was. TNG, which I began to watch in the early 90's, had one thing I liked better than the original: a captain of a star ship who behaved like the captain of a naval vessel. Jean Luc > Kirk. (Yes, I am biased, career Navy ...)

[Petrocorus]

And it has Giancarlo Esposito in it: so I love it by default.

+1

Yes, yes it was. TNG, which I began to watch in the early 90's, had one thing I liked better than the original: a captain of a star ship who behaved like the captain of a naval vessel. Jean Luc > Kirk. (Yes, I am biased, career Navy ...)

I recently finished TNG and i still prefer Sisko.

Wasn't Roddenberry an ex-military too?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Yes, a combat pilot.

[Peelee]

wookies

Wookiees. 2 E's.

[Riftwolf]

Let's not and say we did.

Sounds good to me!

I never really thought much of the Star Wars films when I was growing up, so when I watched the first two prequels (never saw the third) I just thought meh. Didn't like or hate them.
Then years later when I saw the first Hobbit in the cinema I remember thinking 'Ohhhh... So *this* is how Star Wars fans felt...'

[BarakDeathBlade]

Coming from someone who watched the sequel trilogy before the originals or prequels (blasphemous, I know), it was pretty surprising to see how much vitriol the movies got (specifically, The Last Jedi).

And Jar Jar Abrams gets a lot more blame than he really deserves.

The Force Awakens was a soft reboot, it wasn't great, it was A New Hope retold with new characters, fine. It was OK. It set the new story, and had plot points for moving forward.

Rian Johnson wrote and directed The Last Jedi. It would have made a solid stand-alone film. But it wasn't a stand-alone film, it was the second movie of a trilogy. It ignored the plot points from The Force Awakens, and didn't set anything up for the third movie.

The Fail of Skywalker was bad because of The Lost Jedi. In a single movie, JJ Abrams had to invent new plot hooks that weren't followed up on or left in The Lost Jedi, then resolve them, and it was just a rushed mess because it was two movies worth of plot in a single film.

I wholly endorse Red Letter Media (Youtube channel) in their view on this. I believe the single most destructive weapon in Star Wars was shaped like a sphere, and it was Rian Johnson's head.

It's like, Roy dies in War and XPs. Then in Don't Split the Party, they just don't talk about Roy, like ever. Then in Blood Runs in the Family, Elan's the new party leader, Roy's back but he's a bit character because we've lost too much plot time. Oh, and instead of The Longest Day being over 100 pages for a single day of action, it's like 12 pages because that's all Rich has left in his budget. We'd be complaining about OOTS the way Star Wars fans complain about the sequels.

[Peelee]

And Jar Jar Abrams gets a lot more blame than he really deserves.

Wholly disagree, and in fact I would turn that around - he doesn't get nearly as much blame as he really deserves.

[Petrocorus]

Wholly disagree, and in fact I would turn that around - he doesn't get nearly as much blame as he really deserves.

I second this.
A lot of people lay waste on Johnson and blame all the issues of the sequel trilogy on TLJ, but TFA had a lot of problem and is the source of a lot of the ST's issues.
Notably the total lack of context and set up that plagued the ST is JJA's fault. TFA had even less context and explaination that ANH despite the fact that ANH started from a blank page.

In ANH, we do learn there is an Empire, that it's quite recent and overtook a Republic from the inside. We learn the Senate just got dissolved.We learn there is a Rebellion, and we can see the discrepancy in powers. We learn there was a Clone War.
And because it is the first instalment, we can roll with this.

In TFA, we see there is a First Order, we don't know where it comes from, or even what it is. We only learn it's old enough to have adult soldiers that were abducted as children and raised and trained to be soldiers. We know there is a Resistance, but we don't get what it is and what is its relation with the New Republic. We're told absolutely nothing about the Republic. And we don't even get the idea of the relative powers of these 3 factions.
And this despite the fact this completely depart from the situation at the end of the previous movie.

[bunsen_h]

I still have to read the last books of it, but i definitely want to adapt the quintarian religion into D&D.

Huh. Interesting idea. The Father would obviously be LN or LG, the Bastard CN or CG-ish? The god of disasters, things out of season, but also the one who redresses imbalance. This is one of those cases where having to shoehorn something into the alignment chart makes things pointlessly confusing.

Old-timey as in before ST:TMP came out? In my family (and everyone I knew who liked Trek), "Trekkie" was the term. I don't recall "Trekker" becoming common until the movies and TNG went more mainstream and fans wanted to sound more serious.

Definitely before ST:TMP. This is stuff that I was reading about only a few years after the original show went off the air, in books published in the early 1970s.

[Petrocorus]

Huh. Interesting idea. The Father would obviously be LN or LG, the Bastard CN or CG-ish? The god of disasters, things out of season, but also the one who redresses imbalance. This is one of those cases where having to shoehorn something into the alignment chart makes things pointlessly confusing.

So far i made this:

Spoiler

Show

But i'm not really satisfied.
I base this on what i found on several wiki, since i haven't read all the books (on my to-do list).

[mashlagoo1982]

I think this was mentioned earlier, but I suspect this "trap" is simply a method for gathering information on the individuals entering the dungeon.
Like those traffic trackers we sometimes drive over on roads.

There could be many purposes for such an inclusion in a dungeon.
My pet theory is that the information gathered is somehow used to modify the difficulty of the dungeon to reflect an appropriate challenge for the party entering.

[KorvinStarmast]

Then years later when I saw the first Hobbit in the cinema I remember thinking 'Ohhhh... So *this* is how Star Wars fans felt...'

Bingo. I saw the original Star Wars as soon as I could when it came out.

Wholly disagree, and in fact I would turn that around - he doesn't get nearly as much blame as he really deserves.

Sign me up for this newsletter.

[Dion]

My summary of TFA (and every JJ Abrams movie):

Boom!
Pew! pew! PEW!
Manipulative emotional music!
Mad rush to do a thing before you realize it doesn’t make sense!
Boom Again!
Another mad rush!
Another mad rush!
More sad music!
The end!

I think there was some stupid plot about Rey not knowing where she came from, and Han Solo being a terrible parent, and Princess Leia apparently is like some insane Japanese soldier stuck in a little island still fighting a war 30 years after it ended for everyone else.

But whatever. Pew pew pew!

It was a little better than Thor, but a little worse than Iron Man 2.

[Goblin_Priest]

And Jar Jar Abrams gets a lot more blame than he really deserves.

Wholly disagree, and in fact I would turn that around - he doesn't get nearly as much blame as he really deserves.

I'm going to assume that JJ Abrams was probably under immense pressure from his corporate overlords at Disney to not do anything risky. I'm pretty sure they have a list somewhere that states stuff like "no politics, ever. no midichlorians, ever. no gungans, ever.", and so on. All those things a lot of people hated from the prequels (I didn't), they probably completely banned from the sequels. From what I heard, even the Mandalorian tiptoes around this by not actually calling midichlorians by their full name, and that probably got a whole lot of resistance from corporate.

Might just be my head cannon from how things work over there, but would explain a lot.

That said, it just went too far. Out of fear of dulling us with more politics, they just completely avoided saying anything at all about why the new republic failed, or is failing, or how big it is, or what the hell the First Order is, and what they control, or any sense of what the stakes are. At bits, it feels like they want us to feel that the scope is just like in A New Hope, a relatively small rebel force and a grand galactic empire. At other times, it feels like they are just two tiny paramilitary forces duking it out in the countryside.

A bunch of things and characters are introduced with no explanation, ever. Chemistry is horrible. All the protagonists behave like they are best buddies, when really they share almost no screen time together. There's ridiculous character bloat, with many characters obviously not really having a purpose in the grand scheme of things. They try to set up Kylo as a big bad, but nobody's falling for what, it's way too obvious he's going to pull a Vader and die atoning for his sins. He teases a bunch about the Knights of Ren, and then never actually gives them any screen time at all.

All because, in appearances at least, a total phobia of prequels criticism. But the original series has a bit of politics, when senators, and the importance of the senate, and the head of the empire, chains of command. They didn't take a whole lot of place, but they still helped create the world in which the story takes place.

Which all meant that even if Johnson hadn't just gutted the story of all ongoing arks and questions, by the second movie it was already too late. If Snoke was to be the big bad of the trilogy, he needed to be set up better earlier, in the very first movie. Sure, the Emperor didn't get any screen time in the first movie, but again, new franchise, new story, you can start those where you like. Jumping way down in time and never explaining any of what changed and why it changed... that's like any long series, and then removing all the books between the first and the last. It's probably not going to be super satisfactory.

[bunsen_h]

So far i made this:

Spoiler

Show

But i'm not really satisfied.
I base this on what i found on several wiki, since i haven't read all the books (on my to-do list).

I don't know what that is; the link is broken.

EDIT:

My summary of TFA (and every JJ Abrams movie):

Boom!
Pew! pew! PEW!
Manipulative emotional music!
Mad rush to do a thing before you realize it doesn’t make sense!
Boom Again!
Another mad rush!
Another mad rush!
More sad music!
The end!

I think there was some stupid plot about Rey not knowing where she came from, and Han Solo being a terrible parent, and Princess Leia apparently is like some insane Japanese soldier stuck in a little island still fighting a war 30 years after it ended for everyone else.

But whatever. Pew pew pew!

Yes; the whole thing is predicated on the audience being swept along so they don't have a chance to think about how little sense the plot makes. "Hang on, who set up that trail of breadcrumbs? Was this the villain's plan, that the characters would follow this extremely implausible series of actions?"

[Petrocorus]

I don't know what that is; the link is broken.

Let's try with imgur.

Spoiler

Show

Why those website don't work for the profile picture?

[Dion]

Yes; the whole thing is predicated on the audience being swept along so they don't have a chance to think about how little sense the plot makes

Which is probably fine. Not every movie needs to wound up as tight as Hitchcock.

I guess I was just expecting Star Wars, and not “Mission Impossible - In SPACE!”

(plus 7 or 8 minutes of emo vader, who seemed to have scenes spliced in from a totally different movie).

EDIT: you know, the more I think about it, the more I realize i really don’t remember all that much about TFA. Maybe it wasn’t “Mission Impossible - In SPACE!”.

But for the life of me I seriously can’t remember why anyone did anything in that movie. In my memory, they all just seemed to wildly careen from event to event, like space was a big pinball machine.

[Peelee]

Which is probably fine. Not every movie needs to wound up as tight as Hitchcock.

I don't think "a plot that makes sense" should really be considered a bar set as high as "A Hitchcock film".

[Dion]

I don't think "a plot that makes sense" should really be considered a bar set as high as "A Hitchcock film".

Oh heck no. I’m not even entirely sure if a plot matters. Mulholland Drive a perfect movie, and nobody is going to tell me that had a plot.

In an unrelated note, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is on Amazon Prime. That movie is about as good as a movie can get without having any reason to exist...

[Ruck]

Oh, absolutely. I like how he praises himself for his "mystery boxes". That's just frigging lazy writing. Sure, sometimes, mystery and ambiguity can be intentional and good, but that's not what this guy is doing.

It is frustrating that not only does he think puzzles = stories, but that he often creates his "mystery boxes" without actually having the answers. A mystery should be solvable. Also, maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I watch stories for the characters and actions they take in the narrative, not to study background details and piece together theories about what's really going on.

[Riftwolf]

Bingo. I saw the original Star Wars as soon as I could when it came out.

The LOTR films were ones I loved when they came out, and it was a yearly ritual for me and my friend to go see them (although, years later, my friend admitted to not liking them), even though all the helicopter shots at the start of the Two Towers made me horrifically dizzy.

The Hobbit, however, felt like the Stairs of Khazad-Dum from Fellowship repeated twenty times, and there being no real sense of when the film would end, because there was nothing you could call a climax.
I liked the Gollum bit though.

[Riftwolf]

It is frustrating that not only does he think puzzles = stories, but that he often creates his "mystery boxes" without actually having the answers. A mystery should be solvable. Also, maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I watch stories for the characters and actions they take in the narrative, not to study background details and piece together theories about what's really going on.

I don't suppose you can explain Mystery Boxes a bit better? I've not seen the JJ Abrams films so I keep imagining you're talking about the boxes from Deal or No Deal.

[Ruck]

I don't suppose you can explain Mystery Boxes a bit better? I've not seen the JJ Abrams films so I keep imagining you're talking about the boxes from Deal or No Deal.

Essentially, the "mystery box" in Abrams' usage is some mystery at the heart of the story-- broadly, "what's the deal with the island?" for LOST could be considered one. But Abrams' approach is not to have an answer in mind when he created the mystery (like, say, a detective story or whodunit would)-- the whole point of the mystery box is to get the audience to speculate and theorize about the mystery. He's not trying to tell a story; he's trying to get viewers to think about a question that has no answer.

[Peelee]

Abrams himself can explain it: https://www.ted.com/talks/j_j_abrams...xt?language=en