So you remember that half-assed Star Wars: The Force Awakens “boycott” that the white supremacists tried to get going a couple of months ago?
Well, apparently it was a GIGANTIC SUCCESS. In some alternate universe. Probably.
Aren’t there like infinite universes or something? There’s probably an alternate universe somewhere where we’re all giant land-squids, and in that universe every single giant land squid decided to spend the day playing Jarts instead of going to Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Oh, also in that universe Jarts are still legal.
Meanwhile, in this universe, where very few of us are giant land-squids, the Star Wars boycott kind of flopped big time.
Making this dude very, very sad, we imagine.
@Alan Robertshaw: when I was a kid, our parents let us play with Jarts. Heavy, potentially lethal toys. Good times.
We plan to see TFA this weekend, if the crowds have thinned out at all. Looking forward to seeing if JJ Abrams uses the lens flare effect for all his space movies, or if that’s just a Star Trek thing.
And maybe I’m completely tone-deaf, but I didn’t get huge racist vibes from Episode I. I took it at face value, that these are different species, and there are only so many accents with which English (sorry, Galactic Basic) can be spoken.
@Pandapool, I am so glad you’re getting plenty of rain in Cali! I’ve lived through Kentucky droughts, but I can’t imagine one that lasts for years.
@AsAboveSoBelow,
I didn’t see any lens flares, which was kind of surprising — all the weapons glow, man.
I did notice that FTL travel, like in Star Trek, is compressed enough to be essentially instantaneous, and there was one thing that bugged me when it happened in Star Trek and it bugged me when it happened in TFA, but this is where I give you my best River Song impression and go, “Spoilers!”
@ Falconer
What’s that equate to in parsecs? 😉
Star Wars boycott? Good luck with that, racist assholes.
The El Nino thing is interesting, though. Last time it came around, in 1998, was when we had the Quebec “Ice Storm” – ice accumulation from freezing rain, plus high winds, caused widespread power outages and property damage. I was nine, so it was sort of fun: missing school, filling up hot water bottles to keep warm at night, putting the food from the fridge outside to keep it cold, sliding down ice-crusted hills in defiance of parental orders… that sort of thing. But I hope it doesn’t happen again this year! Right now in Montreal it’s just warm(ish) and rainy.
@Alan:
Fourteen 😉
@ falconer
That wink has me intrigued!
Well, then I have said too much, and the information must spread no farther. Hope you like spice mines.
@ Falconer
Well, if it’s a way of stocking up on Melange….
Wait a minute, spice mining, desert planet, galactic empire? Hey!
How dare! Lucas was a visionary! Nothing about the franchise is at all derivative, and now the Mouse has killed it by making more of it! HOW DARE
Actually, I love the lens flares! I think they look really cool. However, they fit with Star Trek, because they look futuristic, but I don’t think they’d really fit in Star Wars, because its supposed to be a used, dirty galaxy rather than flashy.
Oh, and I third banning the increasingly tedious troll. Trolls that never listen to anyone, and repeat the exact same things over and over again instead of addressing people’s points in any way are the worst!
Over here in the Yukon winter has been pretty sad temperature wise. Its mostly been only ten below at the lowest until quite recently. Its been a little more normal the last two days though.
@nparker I like the lens flares, too, and I think you’re right that it fits much better with the futuristic Trek world. As a “How It Should Have Ended” short pointed out, they make the Enterprise’s bridge look like an Apple Store. 😀 “Used Dirty Galaxy” might be a good band name.
Buffalo, NY had epic snowfall this time last year.
This year, it hasn’t had a measurable snow fall, last I heard.
Someone did a cartoon about the global warming deniers having to break out the “but there’s snow on the ground!” later every year….
Me, too. I’ve been scrolling past (edited from “through”) Walter’s posts for a couple of weeks now…
As someone who actually knows a few people in the “business” of show, I can categorically state that Walter doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Just because you didn’t care for a movie you saw, doesn’t mean you can write off an entire company as some evil, creatively bankrupt monolith that only concerns itself with the bottom line. Are there entertainment institutions that run a business like a business? Yes (GASP!) but that doesn’t mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. “This movie didn’t cater specifically to what I wanted so clearly, the people behind it must be nothing but number-crunching robots with no passion for the material within. Clearly.” That’s like saying all the women in the world who wouldn’t date/sleep with you must obviously be gay.
There is a world of damn difference between The Force Awakens (which I haven’t seen so no spoilers, please) and the 2 Amazing Spider-Man films, which should be self-evident. How do I know this? Because I’ve seen EVERYTHING ELSE surrounding this latest Star Wars film to know a lot of care and thought went into it.
Here’s something people should know about me: I’m actually not a big Star Wars guy. I think Empire is a legitimately solid film. You know who wrote and directed that one? NOT GEORGE LUCAS. The rest, I can take or leave. Aside from the occasional set piece, I’m indifferent to them. I saw The Phantom Menace in a theater. I get that it’s a “kid’s movie” but that doesn’t excuse it from being a SHITTY kid’s movie.
For one thing, the tone is all over the place. Boring trade disputes clash with repetitive pod racing, racially insensitive characters (Watto is a big-nosed dealer who haggles over money. COME ON!), disjointed action scenes that cut away from each other far too frequently to maintain any momentum. As cool as the light-saber fight in the third act “looked”, they never stay with it long enough before I have to watch Anakin “Yippee” his way through what’s SUPPOSED TO be an intense, important dog fight in space. Same goes for Jar-Jar LITERALLY fumbling his way to victory. I should be concerned about all the potential casualties of war going on but instead, I’m supposed to giggle at the goofy antics of a spastic alien with a speech impediment. Ultimately, The Phantom Menace had no real stakes to speak of so I was mostly bored.
I tried watching Attack Of The Clones on TV, once. The dialogue was so uncomfortably stilted and the romance was so awkward and lacked any chemistry, I had to shut it off after 15 minutes or so. My overall point is, art and commerce are not always mutually exclusive. You CAN serve both interests. If a fucking trailer for The Force Awakens can make me (of all people) shed an actual tear, there is CLEARLY love behind this art. It’s not just about money but again, it CAN ALSO be about money, in addition to being good art.
I feel as though Walter is playing with some revisionist history in regards to George Lucas. If you look at the Star Wars prequels and say, his student films, there is a saddening cognitive dissonance there. Originally, George wanted to make Flash Gordon. You know, NOT his own material. He couldn’t get the rights so he basically “borrowed” heavily from The Hidden Fortress. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that and I’m sure we can all agree that he added his creative touches to make it his own but keep in mind, the main character’s name was almost Luke Starkiller, which is pretty silly considering he “kills” the Death “Star” in the end. The initial creation of the first Indiana Jones film is rife with moments of George Lucas coming up with over-the-top, tonally inconsistent ideas and Spielberg and Kasdan basically saying “Yeah, that’s stupid. Let’s not do that,” or sometimes, “Let’s dial that back and see if we can’t grow something better out of your initial idea here”. That’s George Lucas, in a nutshell. The man lacks subtlety in his art and his grasp of tone is spotty, at best.
Compare that to the most recent Indiana Jones film, where Lucas was clearly more involved and more instrumental. The differences in tone and even the character inconsistencies are rather jarring at times. Then there are the Special Editions. George’s answer to the question no one asked. It’s sad to see a guy look at his own work and not see what the rest of the world sees. Instead, he sees nothing but flaws and tries to fix what isn’t broken, thereby breaking it. Look at the track records of people such as George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan, for example. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. For the record, I’m THE GUY who actually enjoyed The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull but I digress.
Tl;dr: Walter is wrong about Disney and one needs only to pay attention to most of their art to understand that. You don’t buy Star Wars for literally BILLIONS of dollars because you’re just concerned with making money. Let’s also remember the guy who SOLD his “vision” for billions of dollars.
Slightly off-topic, but brought to mind by Frank’s comments about the red-pillers and the red flag: can some American explain to me how your right-wingers square “Better dead than red” with deciding that right-wing states are red while left-wing ones are blue?
Rabid Rabbit — wiki says we only settled on that color scheme in 2000, so I’m guessing it’s the simple matter of “better dead than red” people not being elbow deep in news reporting (you’re fairly far into tinfoil territory to hear that quote)
Okay, so it’s clearly a vile ploy by the liberal media elite to make the US right-wing ridiculous by giving them commie colors, right? What would poor Senator McCarthy say?
@ John Pavlich
“Tl;dr: Walter is wrong about Disney and one needs only to pay attention to most of their art to understand that. You don’t buy Star Wars for literally BILLIONS of dollars because you’re just concerned with making money. Let’s also remember the guy who SOLD his “vision” for billions of dollars.”
I agree that Walter has no idea what he’s talking about, but can we not tar Lucas with the same brush Walter does Disney? Its not actually any better.
Also, none of what we think of the films, good or otherwise, contributes to proving Walter wrong about whatever he’s on about. Its not related.
It’s actually been over a decade, although we’ve had breaks here and there, and unless we have this much rain all year round for several years, it’s not gonna do much, and the fact that several bottle plants, like Nestle, are still using our water for their sodas and bottled water sure as hell isn’t helping, but, like, there’s green grass in the pastures now!
GREEN. GRASS.
Not dead and brown after a week.
It’s beautiful. I haven’t seen wild green grass since I was in elementary school.
I am not exaggerating.
I’m not the only person bothered by Finn’s portrayal in the movie. A lot of black fans found him lacking.
On the Mary Sue, there has been a lot of debate about in the comments section of this article. Look up a poster called oldrepublic73 he shares a sad story about his child’s reaction to Finn’s character.
Also check here. The people on this forum have been having a very spirited discussion about Finn for over a dozen pages with lots of different opinions given on the charcter and his rle in the film.
Some of these opinions I agree with, some I don’t, but these are some of the reactions of black people to this character. That’s not to say that all black people hated Finn, because a lot liked him, but there were issues with how he was portrayed.
@nparker
I know it’s not related, I just felt like killing two birds with one stone by giving my thoughts on the films, themselves. It’s the writer and critic in me, I suppose. 🙂
I actually don’t have an issue with George Lucas selling Star Wars to Disney or merchandising the hell out of the franchise. He’s a smart businessman. I can respect that. My point was more to the blatant hypocrisy on display.
@ John Pavlich
I know, it just seemed sort of.. mean-spirited to respond to Walter by countering with negative reviews of his work, when it wasn’t related.
Walter’s hypocrisy is really something though, isn’t it? I mean, he’s even acting like he’s the only George Lucas fan here. I mean, George’s one of my biggest heroes too- but I don’t use that to bash other creators.
I never said anything bad about JJ Abrams. I don’t like Disney the company. I have nothing against any of their employees.