Change my mind
Star Wars OT is good. It's about a rebel group that topples an oppressive imperialist regime. If I recall correctly, Lucas was taking inspiration directly from Vietnam. The rebels are the Vietnamese communists. The Empire is the USA. Absolutely based.
The prequel trilogy and the sequel trilogy are both completely politically incoherent.
The prequels are trash films and full of faults but I'm not sure they're politically incoherent, they're very blatantly about the inability of decaying / late stage parliamentary democracies in dealing with the rise of fascism
Yeah, if you have the prequels described to you they're amazing movies.
It's only when you actually watch them that you discover that they're actually bad in every way a movie can be bad. They are, except for the script, acting, cinematography and editing, great movies.
One could say the story is fantastic but terribly executed. Perhaps it would be better if those aspects were improved or as a novel.
That is certainly the broad thrust of it, but it's muddled by the specifics of Palpatine's plan making absolutely no sense. A series of completely unplannable events occurs, which culminates perfectly in the galactic senate giving Palpatine dictatorial powers. I get it, I see what George is going for, but I would have appreciated any of the events along the way having some meaning.
I suppose so. Mostly, random events take place, and then occasionally a villain will pull out their Palpatine hologram and say everything is going according to plan my master! But the audience is never, ever clued into the plan, so we're left to assume Palpatine is a 500 IQ mastermind puppeteering everything toward his ultimate goal. I wish it had been better thought out; George clearly has good ideas in mind., but the execution is abysmal.
I mean, they could have established that by like, idk having a scene were Palpatine goes into his secret space hologram map room and chackles why going "Operation Q Delta failed, but now Operation Z Gamma is going right as planned!"
I can buy the idea that the guy is a 10,000 IQ genius with 5000 back up plans but you kinda have to explain that, or else it's just a lot of him going "THIS WAS MY PLAN! SOMEHOW!"
Oh yeah, I definitely didn't mean to imply it's clearly executed, well written, well thought out or even anything really. I just think it's pretty obvious what those films are trying, very poorly, to suggest
The prequel trilogy and the sequel trilogy are both completely politically incoherent.
I think the politics of the Prequel Trilogy are extremely coherent and well thought out. The problem Lucas had is he forgot the golden rule "Nobody cares about the events of your story, they care about how it affects the characters." The sequels are all focused in on the characters which is why people liked them more...but the politics are just all over the map. Its still not clear to me how the first order went from being a sort of rogue military group to being the dominate force in the galaxy between 7 and 8.
The rebels are the Vietnamese communists. The Empire is the USA
The "evil empire" is German (British actors)
They are coded as Nazis in terms of costuming, but the plot of the film doesn't support that. There are no allied powers at war with the Empire, just rebels from the places they've conquered.
Best of the sequel trilogy? Sure.
Best of every Star Wars movie ever? Nah.
All the original trilogy and Rogue One are better than The Last Jedi.
I'd say TLJ is better than RoTJ, for starters, it's faster paced and less racist.
For me at least, the throne room confrontation between Luke, Vader and the Emperor alone makes it better than TLJ.
That moment when Vader saves Luke is more powerful than any moment in TLJ imo
I actually find it really useful for teaching kids, since there's an idea that anyone has good in them and can change. It helps them shift from saying "so and so is a bully" to "so and so, please don't hit me." Which helps so and so consider their behavior as a choice and not as an identity, and teaches the other kids to communicate their needs. I'm like, "remember how even Darth vader chose to be good? Anyone can do that, no matter what they've done in the past"
I think so many people liked TLJ because they don't like Star Wars. It wasn't just a massive stylistic deviation in a way the other sequels weren't, its script directly challenged the cliches of the other star wars film. I think TLJ was the best film for people who didn't like star wars as a kid, while Rogue One was the most faithful vibes wise.
Also, as far as the original trilogy, the expressionist blaster fight in cloud city in Empire is enough to sell me on that movie. The fact that the rest of it was a decent action movie makes it the best one.
while Rogue One was the most faithful vibes wise.
Very true, and it makes me mad that the original intent was clearly to make a movie with the exact opposite vibes, namely "rebellion means massacring imperials, we're like a terrorist cell ok, it's called a star WAR"
The monologue from the first trailer wasn't even in the fucking movie.
Plenty of people liked it that did like Star Wars, but were tired of the constant recycling and callbacks and devotion to the past. Did Rey really need to find the Millennium Falcon?? The force awakens was just one huge wink and nod and HEY REMEMBER THIS, YOU KNOW, FROM STAR WARS???
We've seen that movie, more than once. I was glad for some new stories within the Star Wars universe, instead of the same shit again. It's why people loved The Mandolorian so much (until recently) it didn't try so hard to callback everything.
while Rogue One was the most faithful vibes wise.
I think you meant visuals
I'll be honest this is probably the only other movie in the series that I truly like. A mix of the spiritual growth plot line and the emotional impact of the heroes failing at the end really makes it unique.
Thesis: Star Wars good.
Antithesis: Star wars bad.
Synthesis: I don't care.
Lucas based the Rebel alliance on the Viet Cong. Star Wars is based as hell!
Oh yea sure, becuase under the Republic, Slavery was illeg...oh wait.
Hmm...they had a post-scarcity socie...hmmm
Oh yea! They at least eradicated hunger, like I mean we never see anyone starv...fuck.
What exactly is based about Star Wars?
Yeah...the old Republic and the old Jedi order actually sucked. Kind of insane how Palpatine in the space of a generation was able to completely convert a crumbling and weakening democracy into a fascist empire. That's one of the things I actually think Rian Johnson got right. What I think he got wrong is that part of Luke's whole character arc in the original trilogy is about learning to not idealize the past and that his heroes don't have all the answers...which is why he is able to redeem his father in spite of everyone telling him he can't and why Legends Luke is best luke since he completely reforms the entire Jedi order.
Its probably the best looking movie...but I maintain the script is really bad. Luke's whole character arc completely undoes and contradicts everything he learned in the original trilogy about not idealizing the past and as much as I'm on board with the idea of jaded cynical old man luke...they way they got him there makes absolutely no sense. That's not even getting into how lame and boring the whole slow moving chase scene plot is, or the way they constantly contradict lore in a way that breaks the unvierse. Like how lightspeed tracking is impossible....except it was litterally established in the first movie in 1977 as a thing for fucks sake.
The movie where people are running around in a battleship that's torn in half like nothing happened, defying every law of physics? I might rethink that one.
The movie in the series where there are literal space wizards, defying physics? No, it cant be.
Hard disagree. Movies still have to follow rules they set for themselves.
Dany having dragons in GoT makes sense because they set it up. If Tyrion started flying randomly...not so much.
ETA I'm not even a SW nerd. I've watched all the movies but that's it. I don't think TLJ is a bad movie, but it's a bad SW movie
defying every law of physics
Ok Neil DeGrasse Tyson you nerd ass
it's like the least political (and least coherent) of nearly all of them. every single star wars has had a strong anti-imperial stance, with the prequels shifting to basically an anti-authoritarian stance. The rebels were based on the viet cong for fucks sakes, according to Lucas himself. The prequels were anti-bush even during that awful window right after 9/11 where anything slightly critical of Bush was called unamerican (those that lived through it know what I'm talking about). The prequel jedi can even be seen as a pretty good analogy for the Democrats (from a old school liberal like Lucas), well meaning but ultimately a huge part of the problem. Meanwhile TLJ has what "anyone can be a jedi"? You mean like the hundreds we saw in the prequels? Every single one was an anyone, with the one exception of Dooku (he was a planet's dictator's son). I can't even think of any coherent message in TLJ. Meanwhile the rest of Star Wars was teaching damn important lessons about power and governing gone horribly wrong, all in a way that is both easy to understand for kids and enjoying for adults. Meanwhile TLJ has caused nothing but drama and arguing, no matter what you think you can at least acknowledge that.
TL;DR: the originals are pretty damn good actually, prequels not so bad either.
edit: this is just about the politics of it, I could go into other areas but this one has bugged the shit out of me the most
Am I allowed to admit the clone wars cartoon show was more enjoyable to me than any of the movies? KOTOR as well. Shit, the lego games were more fun than half of the movies they're about.
