Jecki Lon Memorial Star Wars Thread

[striker42]

Your standard for unwatchable is probably too high.

Even deleting a great character, the show still would be fine. It wouldn't be great or good but it wouldn't be terrible.

Have you watched some of the really **** shows that have come out? Cause there's some true **** out there.

At least the visuals of The Acolyte were top notch and there were people who clearly cared there.

The show was pretty terrible outside of Manny Jacinto. I think most of its problems stemmed from Headland not being able to kill her darlings.

Headland has talked about how for a long time she obsessed about every piece of The Acolyte. I think that led to her over writing on it. She had too many ideas, too many things she wanted to set up, too much she wanted to include, and no ability to cut anything. That led to some problems.

First, the series was very muddled. Too many things were included that really didn't contribute to the main story (looking at you Basil). These were ultimately were just distractions from the story and made the show difficult to follow. They also soaked up valuable screentime that could have been used developing characters or plot.

Next, the main plot was pretty thin. With so many other things shoved into the story there wasn't enough time to devote to a more complex and compelling main story. So not only was it difficult to discern what story was really being told, the story that was told wasn't interesting.

Headland needed someone to tell her "no". She needed someone to reign her in and keep her focused on telling the story. It's almost like she forgot that setting up for future seasons is irrelevant if you don't make the first season good enough to be renewed.

 

[zitothebrave]

The show was pretty terrible outside of Manny Jacinto. I think most of its problems stemmed from Headland not being able to kill her darlings.

Headland has talked about how for a long time she obsessed about every piece of The Acolyte. I think that led to her over writing on it. She had too many ideas, too many things she wanted to set up, too much she wanted to include, and no ability to cut anything. That led to some problems.

First, the series was very muddled. Too many things were included that really didn't contribute to the main story (looking at you Basil). These were ultimately were just distractions from the story and made the show difficult to follow. They also soaked up valuable screentime that could have been used developing characters or plot.

Next, the main plot was pretty thin. With so many other things shoved into the story there wasn't enough time to devote to a more complex and compelling main story. So not only was it difficult to discern what story was really being told, the story that was told wasn't interesting.

Headland needed someone to tell her "no". She needed someone to reign her in and keep her focused on telling the story. It's almost like she forgot that setting up for future seasons is irrelevant if you don't make the first season good enough to be renewed.

She killed like half the cast in the middle of the season. I think killing her darlings was hardly the problem.

I have no clue what her writing process was for the show I won't speculate.

I think most of the complaints against the show weren't warrented, I don't think it was anything special, nor did I think it was dog ****. I think it fell into the same traps of shwos like Book of Boba Fett where a few cool ideas are there but there were so many bad choices made.

To me her mistake (IMO) Was the bad use of the Roshomon. While the Last Jedi was brilliant in it's usage of it. THis was clunky. And IMO would have done better if it was consolidated to a single episode where you could see the events from the perspective of all 3 major players, you see Osha's perspective, Jedi saving them, etc. Jedi's perspective (really Sol's perspective) and Mae's perspective. YOu get all 3 perspectives and your'e required as the viewer to discern the truth. This could have been done by having all of them together for a brief moment (say Mae captured Sol on Brendok and Osha was trying to save him) they all tell their stories, with Mae's story breaking Osha and causing her to turn. Or something like that. Could even have done it in that last episode if you split it up and you have say Mae having SOl like he did against the ropes saying tell me what happened on Brendok, and he does a version closer to Osha's glossing over the questionable things, then Mae says he lies and tells him her version and he admits to aspects, then Osha sees this and breaks while Mae forgives him Osha turns. IMO the wiping part didn't really matter, she coudl just pretended to be Osha.

 

[striker42]

She killed like half the cast in the middle of the season. I think killing her darlings was hardly the problem.

I have no clue what her writing process was for the show I won't speculate.

I think most of the complaints against the show weren't warrented, I don't think it was anything special, nor did I think it was dog ****. I think it fell into the same traps of shwos like Book of Boba Fett where a few cool ideas are there but there were so many bad choices made.

To me her mistake (IMO) Was the bad use of the Roshomon. While the Last Jedi was brilliant in it's usage of it. THis was clunky. And IMO would have done better if it was consolidated to a single episode where you could see the events from the perspective of all 3 major players, you see Osha's perspective, Jedi saving them, etc. Jedi's perspective (really Sol's perspective) and Mae's perspective. YOu get all 3 perspectives and your'e required as the viewer to discern the truth. This could have been done by having all of them together for a brief moment (say Mae captured Sol on Brendok and Osha was trying to save him) they all tell their stories, with Mae's story breaking Osha and causing her to turn. Or something like that. Could even have done it in that last episode if you split it up and you have say Mae having SOl like he did against the ropes saying tell me what happened on Brendok, and he does a version closer to Osha's glossing over the questionable things, then Mae says he lies and tells him her version and he admits to aspects, then Osha sees this and breaks while Mae forgives him Osha turns. IMO the wiping part didn't really matter, she coudl just pretended to be Osha.

Killing some characters is not the same as killing her darlings. In fact, I think killing the characters was a darling. I think she liked the idea of killing off a bunch of named characters so much she couldn't abandon it even though it became clear there wasn't enough time to really do it right.

That was her bane in a lot of ways. She had some good ideas but there were so many of them shoved into the season that none of them could be done effectively.

The different viewpoints is a good example. To do that effectively you really needed to have a lot of time to invest in it. She didn't have enough so you ended with a main story that was stunted and weak.

You could go on and on. The storyline of Jedi corruption could have been interesting but in this setting it was an underdeveloped distraction.

The Stranger turning Osha could have been really interesting but it made no sense that Osha just immediately forgot the fact that he killed Jecki and there wasn't time for her to do anything but immediately forget.

Hardly any characters had enough time to develop proper motivations for their characters (why does Sol care about the child Osha? Why did Torbin just completely disobey his master? Etc).

The show was a mess. I think the fact that individual ideas were interesting has for some covered up exactly how muddled and poorly executed the show was.

 

[Krgrecw]

Im not sure how old you guys are (47 here) but I starting thinking. Is the Star Wars brand that I grew up with dead and now everything we see is a Disney version that’s not as good? Did Star Wars die, when the Brains behind it sold it to Disney?

Other than Rogue One and Andor, nothing Disney has put out is up to par with the original trilogy

I’d argue yes.

 

[striker42]

Im not sure how old you guys are (47 here) but I starting thinking. Is the Star Wars brand that I grew up with dead and now everything we see is a Disney version that’s not as good? Did Star Wars die, when the Brains behind it sold it to Disney?

Other than Rogue One and Andor, nothing Disney has put out is up to par with the original trilogy

I’d argue yes.

39 here.

I think whether it's dead or not depends on who is the leading voice of Star Wars moving forward. Kathleen Kennedy is the force behind the majority of the direction of Star Wars since Disney took over. So many of her decisions have been unmitigated disasters. She allowed the sequel trilogy to start with absolutely no unified storyline, which is just insane. She also has made some bonehead choices for projects (see Headland, swapping directors back and forth for the trilogy, etc).

If the future of Star Wars is run by Favreau and/or Filoni then I think we'll see content that's a lot more consistent with the feel of original Star Wars. Mandoverse is the only thing keeping Star Wars going right now.

I'm interested to see what direction Skeleton Crew takes

 

[Tapate50]

I think a faster season 2 is Andor could be a good one .

 

[Krgrecw]

I think a faster season 2 is Andor could be a good one .

Yeah but what’s after that?


Other than Zito, not one person in the world wants a continuation of the previous Star Wars movies, and that’s exactly what Disney is giving us. What the ****

 

[zitothebrave]

39 here.

I think whether it's dead or not depends on who is the leading voice of Star Wars moving forward. Kathleen Kennedy is the force behind the majority of the direction of Star Wars since Disney took over. So many of her decisions have been unmitigated disasters. She allowed the sequel trilogy to start with absolutely no unified storyline, which is just insane. She also has made some bonehead choices for projects (see Headland, swapping directors back and forth for the trilogy, etc).

If the future of Star Wars is run by Favreau and/or Filoni then I think we'll see content that's a lot more consistent with the feel of original Star Wars. Mandoverse is the only thing keeping Star Wars going right now.

I'm interested to see what direction Skeleton Crew takes

You really think Kennedy was the one pushing that not Iger? I mean listen no one really knows, but you think Kennedy who if she had the time to make what she felt was right would rush it for profit? Not Iger who wanted to recoup the costs of buying Lucas Film ASAP? I mean it's one way to think, but I believe it to be wrong.

Favreau/Filoni aren't infallible. You think BoBF was good content? Or in the vein of original Star Wars.

IMHO the most in the spirit of Star Wars thing we got was the Last Jedi. It didn't just copy Lucas's work but looked at what inspired him and came out with a complete film full of references to old cinema, unpublished Star Wars content, etc. Lucas was going to kill off Luke in Episode VIII as well.

 

[zitothebrave]

Im not sure how old you guys are (47 here) but I starting thinking. Is the Star Wars brand that I grew up with dead and now everything we see is a Disney version that’s not as good? Did Star Wars die, when the Brains behind it sold it to Disney?

Other than Rogue One and Andor, nothing Disney has put out is up to par with the original trilogy

I’d argue yes.

36, be honest though, do you like the prequels? Not "They're much better now when compared to Disney ****" no, have you liked it since 1999?

 

[zitothebrave]

Yeah but what’s after that?


Other than Zito, not one person in the world wants a continuation of the previous Star Wars movies, and that’s exactly what Disney is giving us. What the ****

krg 20 years ago. "Why is Lucas continuing the prequels, no one wants that"

 

[striker42]

You really think Kennedy was the one pushing that not Iger? I mean listen no one really knows, but you think Kennedy who if she had the time to make what she felt was right would rush it for profit? Not Iger who wanted to recoup the costs of buying Lucas Film ASAP? I mean it's one way to think, but I believe it to be wrong.

Favreau/Filoni aren't infallible. You think BoBF was good content? Or in the vein of original Star Wars.

IMHO the most in the spirit of Star Wars thing we got was the Last Jedi. It didn't just copy Lucas's work but looked at what inspired him and came out with a complete film full of references to old cinema, unpublished Star Wars content, etc. Lucas was going to kill off Luke in Episode VIII as well.

Iger would have just said get me a sequel trilogy on the way. There's no way he wouldn't have allowed time for the setting up of an overarching storyline. He bought Lucasfilm during Avengers phase 1 which was a highly successful set of movies with a central individual running the overarching storyline. There's no reason Iger would have demanded an immediate sequel and not have waited for a complete story to be written.

Hiring Abrams was Kennedy's choice. Hiring Johnson for the second film and giving him a free hand was also Kennedy's choice. Switching directors when you have no pre-determined storyline is about the dumbest move possible and it was 100% Kennedy. That trilogy is an absolute dumpster fire and makes zero sense because Abrams and Johnson played Star Wars tug of war while Kennedy looked weakly on.

Favreau and Filoni aren't infallible. BoBF wasn't great but it's over hated. It had moments and it had to be remembered that it was shot under the strictest Covid rules which made it super difficult to write and film.

But Favreau and Filoni are carrying Star Wars in their backs. Filoni uses Clone Wars to fix the screw ups of Lucas in the prequels and made excellent content. Then Mando was about the only thing capable of uniting Star Wars fans. They're not infallible but they're miles better than Kennedy.

I could point to 500 problems with The Last Jedi and you would simply turn a blind eye to them. That movie was so radically different from the original series that even Mark Hamill made public comments about it. Critics liked it because it was so different from every other Star Wars film. It was so far outside of Star Wars that I legitimately forget it's even part of the franchise.

If you want to see something that was innovative and yet true to the original films, look to Rogue One, not The Last Jedi. Rogue One is one of Kennedy's few wins.

 

[zitothebrave]

Iger would have just said get me a sequel trilogy on the way. There's no way he wouldn't have allowed time for the setting up of an overarching storyline. He bought Lucasfilm during Avengers phase 1 which was a highly successful set of movies with a central individual running the overarching storyline. There's no reason Iger would have demanded an immediate sequel and not have waited for a complete story to be written.

Hiring Abrams was Kennedy's choice. Hiring Johnson for the second film and giving him a free hand was also Kennedy's choice. Switching directors when you have no pre-determined storyline is about the dumbest move possible and it was 100% Kennedy. That trilogy is an absolute dumpster fire and makes zero sense because Abrams and Johnson played Star Wars tug of war while Kennedy looked weakly on.

Favreau and Filoni aren't infallible. BoBF wasn't great but it's over hated. It had moments and it had to be remembered that it was shot under the strictest Covid rules which made it super difficult to write and film.

But Favreau and Filoni are carrying Star Wars in their backs. Filoni uses Clone Wars to fix the screw ups of Lucas in the prequels and made excellent content. Then Mando was about the only thing capable of uniting Star Wars fans. They're not infallible but they're miles better than Kennedy.

I could point to 500 problems with The Last Jedi and you would simply turn a blind eye to them. That movie was so radically different from the original series that even Mark Hamill made public comments about it. Critics liked it because it was so different from every other Star Wars film. It was so far outside of Star Wars that I legitimately forget it's even part of the franchise.

If you want to see something that was innovative and yet true to the original films, look to Rogue One, not The Last Jedi. Rogue One is one of Kennedy's few wins.

1. Iger almost certainly set a deadline, the sequel trilogy originally had a writer for all 3 films but he said he needed more time and that plan was axed because they announced a film release date before doing any real work on the film. If you don't think that's Disney pulling the strings, I don't really know what to tell you. Disney wanted to recoup the cost of the trilogy, they told JJ to make a movie "for the fans" as a cash grab to get as much money as possible.

2. You're right it was her choice, Abrams was like the 4th or 5th choice and was recommended by Spielberg. Wish he wasn't hired, but whatever, Disney though said to make Ep 7 a cash grab. Disney was the one to push for ditching Lucas's ideas (though some were adapted like how Rian treated Luke in Ep 8)

3. BoBF wasn't hated enough. It's really really bad. I can understand you wanting to defend it because of COVID protocols, but it was terrible. COVID Protocals didn't make them have power ranger biker gangs. Covid Protocals didn't shoehorn meaningless flashbacks. Those were choices made by the production crew that may have been a bit forced by COVID but could have been adapted. Wandavision was shot in a similar timeframe (started before but didn't conclude until I believe November 2020) and didn't have the same issues. It's a bad show. You can handwave some stuff away but it's genuinely bad. It fails as a gangster show, a star wars show, etc. It has some good moments but it feels like bad fanfiction.

4. Of course they've done great stuff, but they've also done eh to bad stuff. It's funny that you blame Kennedy for everything bad, but give her no credit for anything good. Like all the "bad" star wars it's her fault she's clearly the ones pulling the trigger, but the "good" star wars she's not involved at all. When I'm sure she's basically as involved in all the content at about the same level.

5. You could point to a ton of things you feel are wrong, but they're not problems. Mark Hamill has made many comments you wouldn't agree with on his opinion of who Luke is as a character. It's not remotely close to being out of Star Wars. You saying that means you don't really get what Star Wars is about. It's easily the most Star Wars film of any from the Disney era. I'll happily defend my point with references.

6. Rogue One is a great film, as is The Last Jedi, Solo is fine, TFA is meh. TRoS is garbage.

 

[striker42]

Luke senses the good in his child murdering, planet destroying father and is willing to die for the chance of redeeming him. Luke senses a potential darkness in his nephew and tries to murder him. This latter Luke is critical to The Last Jedi's story but I've honestly never seen a worse job of explaining such a fundamental change in a main character. It surpasses even Anakin's change from hero to child killer.

If Johnson had made Leia defect to The First Order it would have been essentially the same inexplicable fundamental change.

This on top of the movie's massive problems with an entirely irrelevant arc with irrelevant characters (Finn and Rise), its universe breaking Holdo Maneuver, and its complete undercutting of everything set up in the first movie (you don't have to like Abrams direction but nuking every mystery set up by Abrams just makes the trilogy ridiculously uneven).


No matter what, you can't give Kennedy a pass in the disaster that was the sequel trilogy. You can say it was rushed but Kennedy allowed Abrams and Johnson to play tug of war with the story.

Also, you don't need three scripts written before production is started. You do need a general story roughed out. You could come up with the general, overarching story and story board it in a week. Just make a skeleton to hold the whole thing together.

 

[zitothebrave]

Luke senses the good in his child murdering, planet destroying father and is willing to die for the chance of redeeming him. Luke senses a potential darkness in his nephew and tries to murder him. This latter Luke is critical to The Last Jedi's story but I've honestly never seen a worse job of explaining such a fundamental change in a main character. It surpasses even Anakin's change from hero to child killer.

If Johnson had made Leia defect to The First Order it would have been essentially the same inexplicable fundamental change.

This on top of the movie's massive problems with an entirely irrelevant arc with irrelevant characters (Finn and Rise), its universe breaking Holdo Maneuver, and its complete undercutting of everything set up in the first movie (you don't have to like Abrams direction but nuking every mystery set up by Abrams just makes the trilogy ridiculously uneven).


No matter what, you can't give Kennedy a pass in the disaster that was the sequel trilogy. You can say it was rushed but Kennedy allowed Abrams and Johnson to play tug of war with the story.

Also, you don't need three scripts written before production is started. You do need a general story roughed out. You could come up with the general, overarching story and story board it in a week. Just make a skeleton to hold the whole thing together.

1. Luke went with the mission to turn Vader, and in the process of doing so when Vader mentioned "sister" he tapped into the Dark Side and nearly killed Anakin before stopping. When he sensed in Ben so much destruction and murder including the ones he loved and all he worked for he tapped into the darkside but stopped before killing him. Luke walking to the edge and stopping is a known character trait.

2. Rose and FInn's arc wasn't irrelevant. It was important for Finn's character development which JJ spent 0 minutes doing in TFA.When Johnson picked up the charcter Finn had 2 motivations, get away from the First ORder and protect Rey. Rian had to get him to want to be a part of the Resistance without just forcing him

3. THe Holdo Manuever isn't universe breaking. First the Raddus was a huge ship. It had to make a tight needle flight into a ship. And it simply split the SUpremacy. Also the Supremacy could have fired on the Raddus and stopped it but didn't because they considered it a distraction from their real targets, the escape pods.

4. I don't disagree, Kennedy made a massive mistake firing Trevorrow. JJ was not the guy to bring back. If you had to fire Trevorrow, then bring in a different director and push bakc the release date.

5. No story board comes together in a week. You could probably make a decent rough outline in a week .

 

[zitothebrave]

While known for so many things, James Earl Jones passed today. RIP to the man who voiced Vader.

 

[striker42]

I really, really enjoyed the first two episodes of Skeleton Crew. They aren't repeating perhaps the biggest mistake of The Acolyte. They seem to be telling one, coherent story and not throwing a bunch of underdeveloped storylines at you.

The acting has been pretty good too, especially the kids. It's refreshing after the uneven acting of The Acolyte.

 

[Krgrecw]

I really, really enjoyed the first two episodes of Skeleton Crew. They aren't repeating perhaps the biggest mistake of The Acolyte. They seem to be telling one, coherent story and not throwing a bunch of underdeveloped storylines at you.

The acting has been pretty good too, especially the kids. It's refreshing after the uneven acting of The Acolyte.

100% Agree.

Now if they’d just cancel all those upcoming movies based around ‘Rey’

 

[zitothebrave]

I really, really enjoyed the first two episodes of Skeleton Crew. They aren't repeating perhaps the biggest mistake of The Acolyte. They seem to be telling one, coherent story and not throwing a bunch of underdeveloped storylines at you.

The acting has been pretty good too, especially the kids. It's refreshing after the uneven acting of The Acolyte.

I fell way behind on this because I was busy (show debuted while I was going to PAX, then fell behind on Critical Role and some other things) but I caught up. I enjoy the show. I think it does a decent job balancing the plot and pacing.

I hope we get the payoff of what the Great Work is. I'm guessing it will be in a stinger but I hope it's part of the plot. Since it seems like the next episode will have everyone going to At Attin, some conflict on the surface with the pirates and the citizens and hopefully some word on the great work.

I mean the implication I'm getting is this planet may not know that the Republic fell to the empire. The fact that they're being kind of wishy washy on the timeline of the Pirate crashing the ship means it could have been lost for hundreds of years and they're doing something for nothing.

 

[zitothebrave]

Man I'm excited that they're finally releasing a movie that's post Skywalker saga. Even if Star Fighter isn't a great movie the fact it's not taking place in the established time frame of the main timeline. Star Wars needs to explore more of the non-like 60 years of the SKywalker saga.