Topic: Movie thread.

@Alber-san yeah, I'll give you the ATCT thing, hehe. Again, I've rewatched Rogue One twice with family, its okay, just not quite as star warsy good as I-VI.

@Alber-san

Oh right. I thought you meant lore like the background mythology of the universe type stuff. As in people who disliked the warp speed weapon. Or the fact that nearly all of the force powers used in the film seemed to have been invented for this particular film (a film set in a time long after the Jedi were at their height, i.e the time when you'd expect to see most of the advanced force powers)

Batman Ninja (2018)

A CGI animated movie about Batman who is now also a Ninja.
Gorilla Grodd (he's a Gorilla btw) creates a time machine that sends Batman and the crew to feudal Japan.
Then Batman fights Joker in the past, with ninjas, and huge mecha fortresses and all that good stuff.

I know I'm not explaining it well, but this movie is crazy. Also from what I've read, the dialogue/plot was completely changed for the american version...

Overall, I liked it. It doesn't make a lot of sense but the action scenes are good, and the soundtrack and aesthetics were also nice.

"And why did anyone have Luke's map in TFA if he didn't want anybody to find him?"

I agree, that's strange. As for Rey: She just has a severe loss of memory. Wich could be fixed in episode 9, of course.

I also agree that Rebels was dissapointing. I stil enjoyed it, but its nowhere near the level of the Clone wars. As for the upcoming series Resistance, hopefully we finally learn more about the first Order and Snoke's background. I would have prefered it if it happened in the movies though.

Because Rian Johnson deliberately abandoned every story arc that was started in the first film.

Watched Upgrade this weekend and absolutely loved it. It's a violent, funny, and twisty cyberpunk revenge story that reminds me very favorably of some of Paul Verhoeven's best films (particular Robocop). The film both grounds us, quite painfully, in the rubble of the main character's life even as it finds humor in unexpected places. While I won't call the film's story fantastic, I do think it manages to cultivate an interesting little mystery over the course of its running time.

2018 seems to be a much better year for movies compared to last year so far

IMO I've not seen anything released so far this year that touches Get Out or Logan and they were released at the start of 2017.

They say in The Force Awakens that they believe that Luke sought out the first Jedi Temple, so that is the map that they are searching for.

Personally, I'm more interested in character driven stories than expansive lore, and I found The Last Jedi incredibly satisfying. I liked how Rian Johnson took the weaker plot threads from TFA (Snoke, Rey's parentage) and turned them into something interesting, and I loved how they used Luke Skywalker to deconstruct the idea of infallible mythic heroes.

I consider The Last Jedi the gold standard of using old franchises to tell new, interesting stories, and it kind of depresses me that so many people weren't able to have the same positive experience that I had.

Black Hawk Down (2001)

Great movie. The soundtrack really stands out.

That would've all been fine if it had been a standalone film that didn't use the old characters for this purpose.
But the second film in a trilogy that uses old pre-established characters really shouldn't be telling "new stories". It should be continuing the stories started in the first film, otherwise it completely destroys the momentum behind the story.

@Mrkim @Dezzy
Wait what interesting new story did TLJ have? All I saw was a chase scene, the Rebellion once more and the typical old legendary hero who dies saving everyone.

As a life-long Star Wars fan, i have to say that no one is more annoying than Star Wars fans.

@the_shpydar

Star Wars has the most devoted and extreme fanbase of nearly any franchise in existence.

But the thing is, that's why it was worth 4 billion dollars. Those people print dollars for your franchise if you keep them happy. Alternatively, they ruin your reputation if you piss them off (as is currently happening with Star Wars).

A lot of naive people in the media and hollywood still haven't figured out that you can't get one of those things without the other. You can either get extremely high value franchise that comes with massive risks of the fanbase turning on you OR you can get a much lower value franchise with lower risks and more creative freedom.

1) Luke dealing with being considered a legend when he is very aware that he is not the flawless hero everyone thinks he is.
2) Poe Dameron being confronted with the fact that dumb recklessness is not heroic, no matter how well-meaning it is.
3) Finn, who refuses to properly join the rebellion, meets DJ (who holds Finn's current philosophies of not joining) and Rose (who is much more idealistic and cemented to a cause) and makes the choice to adjust his philosophies to be more like Rose than DJ.
4) Kylo Ren rejecting his manipulators and continuing to run the First Order on his own terms, rendering a Return of the Jedi rehash impossible.

Personally, I found the way all four plot threads came together for the final act extremely satisfying, and unlike anything I had seen before.

To be clear, I'm not saying "this film is good and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong". I'm saying that this film resonated with me and if it didn't resonate with you, that's fine.

Are you saying that large franchises should just churn out the same formula over and over again? Because if you are I couldn't disagree harder. This way of thinking is the reason that the majority of reboots/remakes are generic garbage.

The Last Jedi received glowing reviews, appealed to mass audiences (with an A Cinemascore), and became the 9th highest grossing film of all time. I don't think Disney will mind too much about a group of nerds on the internet complaining that it wasn't what they specifically wanted it to be.

It depends how narrowly you define what the "formula" is. The Force Awakens followed the formula too closely. The Last Jedi didn't follow it at all. All I'd say is that a series should have a common set of themes and styles as well as a continuous narrative arc across the films. I definitely don't mean it as narrowly as J.J.Abrams interpreted it so that you need to have a new Death Star each time. That was silly.

It received glowing reviews from movie critics, who are a very homogenous clique of people who don't remotely represent the general public's opinions.
'9th highest grossing film' is purely a product of past momentum. Which is very likely why Solo has been a box office bomb (which Disney certainly will mind). People judge them based on the last thing they saw. Of course we can't say for certain how much a fan backlash is responsible for Solo bombing but it seems almost guaranteed to be a factor when you have videos like this with 600,000 views calling for a boycott and getting an 85% upvote from the audience:

Watched Hereditary last night. What a fantastic horror movie! Love the way the visual language feeds into and reinforces the absolutely insane narrative. It's also, amazingly, the director's first film. He's only 31, and already has one of the best horror movies of the 2010's to his credit.

Also a great acting showpiece. Toni Collette gave the performance of her life, and Alex Wolff does a great job as her son.

Best film of 2018 I've seen so far.

@Dezzy - Jesus Christ, that video is ridiculous. He accuses Kathleen Kennedy of giving Star Wars a "political agenda" which turns out just to be including women and people of colour. I wouldn't be surprised if this "backlash" is made up entirely of white men.

@Mrkim

Lol you did the exact same thing that Disney has been doing, which has been fueling the backlash. You completely misrepresented what he said.
He clearly said he has no problem with female characters and minority characters but what's absurd is when you deliberately hire people based on those characteristics, which Kennedy and Abrams have both openly admitted they did. Including desperately trying to find a female director.
It's not that hard to see why writers who think their job is to "represent" all different groups of people are generally going to produce worse products than writers who think their job is to just write an interesting and good story. It's obviously connected to the fact that they included that out-of-place political messaging about capitalism and animal rights.

@Dezzy
So it really is just white men feeling victimised when someone says "the vast majority of the human characters in this series are white men, so we should make a deliberate effort to fix this". They don't even fully fix the problem. The main cast of The Last Jedi is still over 50% white men. And are they really being unfair to men by considering hiring a female director after all ten of the previous films were directed by men?

"It would be nice if women and minorities appeared in films more" should not be considered a political statement.

This whole thing is just men who are used to having dominant representation in films getting upset that things are changing and in the future they will only receive the regular amount of representation. I'm so bewildered that anyone could have an issue with any of this.

And seeing as this discussion is getting a little bit heated and lengthy with no sign of any agreements being reached, I'm going to stop here to spare the people who just want a friendly chat about the films they have seen recently.