DSL's Movie/TV Reviews and Discussion

[Hannibal]

We have fought over this before but Force Awakens is better than Phantom Menace & Attack of the Clones. Period. End of story. You cannot point to a single character in Force Awakens that is as insipid or as horriblly acted as Jake Lloyd or Hayden Christiansen in those 2 movies. I know you desperately want to say Daisy Ridley but just stop. Don't embarrass yourself. Go back and watch fucking Jake Lloyd scream wahoo as he pilots through a CGI nightmare. Go watch Hayden expound on the annoying properties of sand. Go watch Natalie Portman fall head over heels for this schmuck that she first met when he was 6 years old and she was pushing 20. Go watch a CGI Yoda bounce around the room like a Superball, swinging a light saber, because George Lucas knew Gen X'ers like you would get an erection watching that shit.

Palpatine's the most powerful space wizard in the universe and his big plan to seize power is provoke a trade dispute. BEGUN THE TARIFF WARS HAVE

Jake Lloyd was a child actor. His character was annoying, but he gets a pass. George doesn't, and neither does Episode I, but the movie had some strong points, too, and some great action scenes that none of the Disney trilogy had at all. That is somewhat true for II and III -- they had some extreme good and bad. As opposed to VII, VIII, and IX, which were 100% bad. OK -- 96% bad -- Adam Driver's acting was pretty good. That's it.

Daisy Ridley is the worst actress that I have seen in a lead role in over a decade. Hayden Christensen was Paul Newman compared to this.

(Eyes wide open + slack jaw = "acting")

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[Hannibal]

Seriously, the only female who might be as bad at acting is Kristen Stewart.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Hey, SPOILER ALERT next time!! FUCK!

...scratches Batman off my list of movies to watch...

[Hannibal]

I have given Daisy Ridley her fair share of crap WRT her acting, but Domhall Gleeson's overacting as Retarded Space Hitler is almost as bad. I think that maybe I forget because I have seen him in other stuff and he has been good, so it's probably just really shitty writing and directing on JJ's part.

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Retarded Space Hitler is as bad a character as Jar Jar Binks.

The only reason to EVER retell the Peter Parker origin story or the Bruce Wayne origin story or the Clark Kent origin story ever again is if 30 years go between films. Which is highly fucking unlikely. These are like modern American folk tales at this point. Everyone knows Bruce Wayne's parents get killed in an alley after leaving a theater. Got it.

I will defend Marvel movies as a modern version of westerns. Hollywood barfed out thousands of westerns once upon a time and eventually they stopped having anything original to say. Which doesn't mean you still can't enjoy the entertainment value of a well-made one.

The Western era did not cannibalize cinema in the same way. Nor did it repeat the same fucking story with the same characters, the same music, the same jokes, and the same story beats a couple dozen times. I can't even finish a Marvel movie anymore they are so boring, repetitive, and predictable. They don't even succeed as shallow, mindless entertainment. I'd rather watch Commando for the 35th time than watch "Marvel Movie LVI Search for the next Mcguffin".

[froot loops]

There is no going back. Sure you might have some criticisms from guys like Hannibal but that doesn't matter, they have a streaming war to win. The cannibalizing didn't happen of the movies, it happened at the movie studios. All the movie studios consolidated.

One genre that is completely gone is legal thriller. There was a stretch in the 90s where you get a couple stars and adapt a Grisham book. There is none of that anymore. The closest they get is a series like Bosch and it's really good but it isn't a movie.

Origin stories are always retold because they make money and it is an easier story to write. The farther a coming book franchise gets away from a origin story, the harder the story.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Dark comedies are the best genre. Because they are dark...and are comedies.

Mister Obvious circa 2022

[Dr. Strangelove]

Hannibal prefers watching this stumbling retard to anything in the JJ Abrams trilogy. He says it's very entertaining and good acting. Did you see Jar Jar step in poopie?? HAHAHAHAHAHA

The only reason, and I mean the ONLY reason Hannibal sort of likes these movies, is because Darth Vader is in them. And Hanni 'members Darth Vader from when he was a kid, the only time in his miserable life Hanni approached anything close to happiness. Darth Vader is such a deep and fantastic character right from the very beginning when he waves his fist at Luke and yells "Imma get you one day!"

[Dr. Strangelove]

Heh, sorry that was harsher than it needed to be

[iam416]

Wait, is Strangelove defending the JJ Abrams stuff?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Wait, is Strangelove defending the JJ Abrams stuff?

Only The Force Awakens and only in comparison to the Prequels. The Last Jedi is BAD and I still have never seen the final movie of the Abrams trilogy. Maybe once football is over and I can't fill my free time with sports I will sit down and try to watch all six in a short span of time, because it HAS been years since I watched any of them.

Things I like better about Force Awakens versus Phantom Menace:

* In spite of what Hannibal says, I think the acting is overall better. The only significant actors in the prequels that I think did a decent job are Ewan McGregor and Ian McDiarmid doing the one role he's known for. Everyone else is bad (Natalie Portman), fucking terrible (Jake Lloyd, Hayden Christiansen), or boring as fuck (Liam Neeson, Samuel Jackson)
* The plot of the Phantom Menace revolves around a trade dispute and the inner workings of Space Congress. This is a film that has both long winded congressional debate scenes and fart/poop jokes.
* In Phantom Menace, all spiritual elements of "The Force" are scrapped in favor of a biological explanation that effectively describes it like a virus. Reaction to this from fans was so hostile and so out of line with the original films that Lucas rapidly reversed course and no mention of midichlorians was ever made again.
* The cinematography is significantly better. The Lucas prequels look like a Nickelodeon cartoon from the mid-2000's. Those movies were filmed almost completely on green screens. Force Awakens actually has real sets and real locations.
* The only thing in Force Awakens that makes me cringe like when I watch Jar Jar is when Han & Company run around the ship being chased by a CGI monster. But that's a relatively brief part of the movie compared with Jar Jar and the Gungans.

But yeah, it's basically a remake of the original Star Wars. Clearly they had no plan for where the 3 movie series was going to go. As he always does, JJ Abrams sets up questions he had no idea how to answer.

[iam416]

I fully concur re the god-awful Annakin-Padme relationship. And, to be fair, JJ didn't do tLJ, so I guess I can cut him some slack on that. And, to be fair, JJ had to clean up Rian's disastrous mess in Ep9. That said, JJ's plot holes can be implausible, even by sci-fi standards -- for example, Rey picking up a light sabre and defeating Kylo.

I watched them all with my son last year. We may have varied slightly on the list, but here is my rating of the movies:

5
4
Rogue 1
6
Solo (these 5, IMO, were all enjoyable to varying degrees)
-----------------------
3
7 (these two had moments and I didn't necessarily begrudge the time spent watching them)
-----------------------
6, 1, 2 (in that order, though there isn't much separation)
-----------------------
9 (plot? JJ don't care!)
-----------------------
8 (it's impossible to overstate how terrible this film is)

[Dr. Strangelove]

Swinging (heh) way back to Spider-Man for a sec, if what you want is for all the teenage drama and angst to be removed from those films, just be aware that what you want is something very different than what the comics have always been. Which is fine, but Peter's personal life problems are what made that character popular with kids & teens in the first place. Characters that were relatively grounded and had personal problems when they weren't in costume is what set Marvel apart from DC back in the 60's. DC superheroes at the time were overwhelmingly alien types with names like Glorp and Kal-El and were rarely portrayed as going on dates or having relationship issues.

[THE_WIZARD_]

When DSL starts swinging...back slowly out of the room...

[Dr. Strangelove]

I fully concur re the god-awful Annakin-Padme relationship. And, to be fair, JJ didn't do tLJ, so I guess I can cut him some slack on that. And, to be fair, JJ had to clean up Rian's disastrous mess in Ep9. That said, JJ's plot holes can be implausible, even by sci-fi standards -- for example, Rey picking up a light sabre and defeating Kylo.

I watched them all with my son last year. We may have varied slightly on the list, but here is my rating of the movies:

5
4
Rogue 1
6
Solo (these 5, IMO, were all enjoyable to varying degrees)
-----------------------
3
7 (these two had moments and I didn't necessarily begrudge the time spent watching them)
-----------------------
6, 1, 2 (in that order, though there isn't much separation)
-----------------------
9 (plot? JJ don't care!)
-----------------------
8 (it's impossible to overstate how terrible this film is)

Oh Solo. I forgot about that one. I haven't seen it either.

5 is definitely the best. It's also the least actiony and the one I watched least as a kid for that reason.

Was thinking about this last night but Empire did unintentionally start an ongoing problem for the franchise by creating the expectation of a "big reveal". I don't remember off the top of my head, but is it even hinted in the original that Luke has a sister?

[froot loops]

I liked The Last Jedi for trying something different, but I can see where people get all bent out of shape about it. I thought Luke as a bitter, broken down curmudgeon would have appealed to the vast majority of folks in here.

Bad acting has always been a part of Star Wars. I love the original movie, seen it so many times and the acting is bad. Han Solo is a great character, but Harrison Ford is not putting in his best work. Carrie Fisher had a great career but she is stiff in that movie. And there are so many bad Mark Hamill moments.

Prequels in general are a bad idea. Lucas had some decent themes for those prequels but he badly needed some oversight.