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How Star Trek The Wrath of Khan Became the Perfect Movie

15 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by therealmcteag in s, Star Trek, Star Trek 2 Backstory, Star Trek Movies, Star Trek the Original Series, The Wrath of Khan

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2001 A Space Odyssey, behind the scenes of star trek 2, Best Sci-fi movies, EFAP, gene roddenberry, harve bennett, How wrath of khan became the perfect movie, jerry goldsmith, lawrence kasdan, Leonard Nimoy, long form production storys, Movie Reviews, nedrotic, ricardo montalbon, Sci Fi movies, Space Seed, Star Trek, star trek 2, Star Trek the Motion Picture, star trek the wrath of Khan, star trek TOS, the best scifi movie, the ciritical drinker, The making of Wrath of Khan, William Shatner, Wrath of Khan

On June 4th, 1982 all of Star Trek Culminated in what may be the greatest Science Fiction movie of all time- Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan!

It stormed into theaters and held audiences in the palm of its hand for 113 completely brilliant minutes.

Fans were enraptured by the amazing story that features brilliant exposition and a natural flow of action that make this a highly watchable gem. Every Sci-Fi fan needs to see and appreciate this great movie. Few can watch this and not feel the emotion of the great scenes. Solidly acted and well directed the movie is Star Trek’s best story and a triumph for the often troubled franchise.

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Wrath of Khan is on most every Sci Fi Movie Top 10 List fighting it out with Empire Strikes Back for the number one slot in several categories. Any list ranking it lower than Third Best SciFi movie of All Time should be disregarded out of hand!  It’s as good as Stanley Kubrik’s sci-fi movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Recently covered by amazing critic The Critical Drinker and guest Nerdrotic in a brilliant podcast I’ve pasted at the end of this article; I have some reactions to what they said in here but its not built off the podcast. So while this post does react to some of what they bought up, it was actually mostly finished about a couple of weeks ago and I’ve just been redrafting. So while I recommend and, as I said, will link the cast for you at the end of the post, this is my account of how the movie got made.

I picked it all this up from a lifetime of following Star Trek and tried to source it all, please correct me if you find a mistake.  On certain aspects of the Final Frontier I do have expert knowledge, but if I cant find something I will mention that its more rumor. Comments are as always, enabled.  Back and forth discussions with you the reader have helped for better Star Trek posts every time, and I will fix any errors I confirm. None of this was ever secret and it will check out.

For this post I’ve scoured through all the internet has to say and what I recall and I have compiled all the best of it here!

Making A Perfect Movie

Making a Perfect Movie isn’t easy and it doesn’t happen by mistake, obviously.  Wrath of Khan may just be a perfect sci-fi movie. This is it’s voyage.

After a traumatizing and even sort of bad experience all around for writers, financial backers, cast and fans with Star Trek The Motion Picture, we get what could be described as “The perfect Star Trek Movie.” The second Installment of the series, Wrath of Khan is the best Star Trek movie. This is ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ of the first Trek movies franchise.

Why is it so perfectly brilliant? Lets explore!

One Last Chance

The first movie was a confusing, kind of boring mess. It was a hybrid compromise that started as a TV pilot and fails its way up to feature film by sucking up a lot of money and getting sidetracked a lot.

It’s the Phantom Menace of the first crews Star Trek movies.  You could make a case it’s actually pretty good, but you really need to know how that thing was conceived and what it became to understand how that story made it on to the Big Screen.

The would be TV pilot was just so expensive the idea of doing something like this on TV weekly slowly started seeming a bad idea. There was a need to recoup the money and the fastest path was simply turn the TV pilot a mediocre movie.

With a new ending soldered on to make it more Movie-like, the first movie is released and makes a tidy sum. Its kind of boring it’s a bit confusing, lacks humor and is overall a fans only recycled Original Series episode re-do on a grand scale.

No one was really crazy about the first movie. But something the studio had counted on happened anyway – people still showed up in droves despite bad reveiews because they loved the characters and they loved Star Trek.

Leaving the theater as a kid all my cousin and I talked was how awesome seeing the crew was and how cool the ship looked. We surely made reference to the story being just like an episode (The Changeling). It was that obvious I could tell even then. Then we were back to how great it was just seeing Scotty,  Uhura and so on.  It was a success in spite of itself.

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By the time they start gearing up for sequel Paramount was fed up and felt it was time for this franchise to make a profit in a timely manner with a good film. They weren’t really opposed to another movie with some cerebral elements and a kind of a deep story though.

The idea Star Trek stories should be a bit brainy was sort of baked in to its culture still. The difference was this time the mission needed to feature action and adventure as well as a smart storyline. The other driving force was for the production to remain under control and on budget.

Somehow they make that happen. In a stunning tale of the tape they make Wrath of Khan for a mere 11 million, this movies dirt cheap compared to its predecessor.

All goals for the concept seem to have been met in a great final product.

This movie is pure Action and Adventure at the Final Frontier, but also smart and respectful of the material. Instead of being a mere reprise of an episode, it’s a bolder concept.  It’s a sequel to the beloved episode “Space Seed.”

As episodes of the original series go Space Seed’s tied with several others for “Best Ever”. Its a top 5 at the very least. It has an awesome villain, played by Ricardo Montalbon, some Starfleet turncoats thrown in and a compelling story that defied any sci-fi fan to look away.

In a show that could sometimes be corny and just dumb fun in some flubbed episodes it was well conceived and brilliantly acted. Stand out broadcast TV excellence.

Failure Analysis and a New Look

We had the bad first movie lighting the way to “How Not To Make A Star Trek Movie”. It’s fair to say that “Failure Analysis” is the biggest contributor to this movies success.

The bad first movie was a clear road map to a film people would actually enjoy. In a moment more like Seinfeld, we get “Opposite Day” where they just make a movie that avoids the pitfalls of Star Trek The Motion Picture, aka Star Trek TMP.

The movie would be serious, but human and action packed. A more military and orderly Starfleet is the first thing we see.

The costumes completely depart from all past uniforms and now have 19th century British Royal Navy feel while still looking futuristic.

This was actually a big part of setting the more serious tone. All future uniforms seem for this crew will be more or less the same.

Phazers and notably communicators are more like they were in the show than the first movie. Things looks look tactile and real.

Then there was a bigger problem to deal with…

Axing the Creator

Originally, series creator Gene Roddenberry was on the project. He shocked and scared people with his idea for the second movie!

Paramount was appalled by a JFK Assassination script with Time Travel courtesy of the Guardian of Forever. It even sounds bad. This was just too shocking and far out to even seriously consider for the studio and that could have been it for Star Trek. No one was going to tolerate another bad, slow, overly important movie. And Kennedy’s assassination was still in most living memories. There’s proably even legal implications along the lines of Defamation.

That was it for Gene Roddenberry as a writer for this or any other Star Trek movie, ever. Paramount had been severely strained under the bloated budget and failed story of Roddenberry’s first Star Trek movie. “45 MILLION DOLLARS!” is just burned into the minds of the Paramount People.

They decide Gene’s a TV genius and to set him to work on what he’s best at – a Star Trek TV Show.

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So here’s how I see it going down – Gene Roddenberry was called into the Paramount office for a friendly chat. The Cuban cigars and good booze are probably out. It’s a set up!

They tell him he’s a genius, they give him an unexpected Golden Hand Shake and then THE KNIVES COME OUT and they FIRE HIS ASS for the mockery of a sham that Star Trek :The Motion Picture had been AND the shockingly bad idea for a sequel.

We can only imagine the scene.  Paramount is horrified and out of patience. The unacceptable sequel idea was beyond the last straw.

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What could have been said? Maybe it was; “We saved this franchise at great financial risk and we all got raked over the coals because lot’s of people thought that movie was so bad! You got the smell on you Gene! You can’t write this one.

“Hey, hey, hey….its not all bad news. Go to the awesome office we gave you (on the far side of the lot) and write more TV stuff that we’ll get out there when the times right. Here’s a check in advance for the show. Did we mention we think you’re a genius? Meanwhile, DON’T WRITE OR TALK ABOUT THIS SEQUEL!”

Star Trek The Motion Picture was proof to the studio that Gene was no movie maker. The fact we get The Next Generation from him on the small screen is proof they were probably right. He makes one of the best TV shows ever that’s hands down the best Live Action Sci-Fi series.

He still manages to sort of haunt the production and the Paramount people blame him for some plot leaks. I don’t believe it. I guess possible he got trashed and revealed he hated it with the heat of a thousand suns, but I don’t think he wanted Paramount any more mad at him then they were. Next step was probably a Hit-Man! Besides he has a new agenda- to dream up Jean-Luc Picard and the Next Generation where he could have total control!

Besides Gene wants the movie to be a hit despite any bruising to his ego.

New Blood

Someone new was needed to be what we would now call a Showrunner for the franchise. Preferably someone not so taken with the franchise they gushed too much and produced another mediocre movie.

Things would be different this time. A deadline is imposed and a small piece of the profits from TMP are allocated to a movie. First order of business, someone not named Gener Roddenberry to create this one.

Enter non Star Trek fan Harve Bennett. His genius in thie production starts a three movie arc of movies that could rightly be called a trilogy sandwiched into the other Trek movies.

Paramount was NOT going through another creative genius melting down on them. In accordance with this, upon hire, Bennett was warned strongly about not blowing tons of cash or ending up with a meandering, mediocre movie. Bennett absorbs it and is sure he can do the movie for about one-fifth the money of the original.

This is what the studio wants to hear. Bennett really works out. He cared about making a good movie that respected the fans who saved the flawed first movie from failing is spite of its problems.

Research is Key

Bennett goes and watches the entire series and the first movie. His take-away? The show had some truly great stories and there were a few very good episodes to build on. The movie however, was really boring and he figured out why. This was probably harder than you’d think because so much is bad and wrong in TMP.

Bennett narrows the first movies biggest problem down to one major issue-The movie had no real villain. The Bad Guy is an Evil Cloud.

The monster is even rehabilitated instead of killed too. In fact at the end the Genocidal and murderous V’ger entity is sort of given one more victim and exonerated. This thing was a threat and Starfleet’s solution is a bit bizarre, but hey it did veer away from Earth and never enter lore again, so okay. Minimal damage.

The plus side is there’s No In-Universe damage from the first movie. Anyone who doesn’t appreciate this just watch Last Jedi and imagine trying to come back from that. You’ll get it. This franchise’s mistakes had limited implications.

It didn’t break a bunch of Star Trek rules and was in direct sequence to the events of the show. At the end of the day it did no harm and showed people what not to do story-wise.  It was merely one of the less exciting adventures for the ship. The whole Planet Destroying Probe concept will be back in a couple of movies anyway with a new dangerous entity.

Things weren’t like they were for the Star Wars franchise after the Last Jedi at all.  Final Frontier was still intact.  In fact things that hurt the experience of watching the first movie clear the way for the sequel by sweeping away characters never meant for the big screen.

Bennett decides that more time will have passed for the crew than had elapsed in real life and now the series is 15 years in the past just like in real life. So the actors are the age their characters supposed to be (at least the human ones). No ones trying to hard to hide their age, they look the part at this point. Theyre known and beloved, they can hit 40 and 50. In fact he works this in to the movie.

The ageing of Kirk and the other characters gets due attention and enters into their motivations as characters. The actors had to love it. They could look like themselves outside Leonard Nimoy. He’s somewhat made up for the character but still gets to age. Spock really is about 100 anyway.

Bennett’s next good choice is that his movie will have a strong villain and have ties to an actual episode or two. He also became familiar with the characters and ends up writing for them as good as anyone ever had.

The episode Space Seed was the best path and its obvious when you watch it. Some rumors say that Harry Mudd would be the one who blundered into Khan. It would not have worked better. The opening is fantastic and Khan is immediately frightening and familiar.

While its not a huge issue Chekov is not in the episode for Khan to recognize, but Chekov and Captain Tyrel of the Reliant get to have the first, amazing encounter with Khan.

It’s still one of the most amazing villain scenes in Sci-Fi History. They just play it like Chekov was there but we just don’t see him in the episode and its no problem. It’s even believable.

And that’s the right move. Ricardo Montalban is a force on the small screen and starring in a huge show, Fantasy Island. Bennett was aware and was lucky Ricardo could fit the movie into his schedule. For Ricardo Montalban’s part, he considered the role a career high both times he plays it.

He menaces and kills crew members, partly destroys the Enterprise and is just brilliant vile and mean. He’s a real adversary. They’ve tangled with him before and he’s had 15 years to grind an axe while using his genius IQ to come up with all sorts of revenge plans on Admiral Kirk. The crew knows he’s fully capable of beating them. He’s got as much gravitas as Kirk and his command of military tactics is pretty up to speed, even if two dimensional.

Mostly relegated to relatable Native Americans in Bonanza and other shows for the entire 60s, Ricardo got better and more successful with age. This movie is a home run for Ricardo. No one in Trek has achieved his status as a bad guy.  It’s probable he’s always going be their best bad guy.

Physically impressive for a roughly 60 year old man (playing a 200 year old man) , they say those are his real muscles, I suppose its true.

Whether they are or not they put together an excellent look for Khan and it manages to be pretty authentic. He looks threatening, he’s got some wild hair and his worn out clothes are perfect. The partially destroyed Starfleet logo he wears around his neck is clearly an albatross-like burden symbolizing his desire to destroy, well everything, but the Enterprise more than anything else. I want one.

Khan and his crew easily could have degenerated into Road Warrior bad guys had so much detail not gone into their costumes. They work well.

Space Seed

In this episode Khan makes a bid to take the Enterprise but instead Kirk turns the tables and, after a hearing, he convinces Khan to agree to exile on an Earth-like planet with his genetic freak cohort and Starfleet traitor Marla McGyvers, ships historian and girlfriend of Khan. So spared prison Khan to his own devices on an unexplored sort of earth-like planet.

Space Seed shows us a worthy adversary. It takes un-frozen Khan maybe a weekend to get up to speed for the 200 hundred years hes been out of it and of course he keeps to himself that he used to be a slightly less mean Hitler type.

The best scenes are verbal cat and mouse games when McCoy, Kirk and Spock work in tandem against Khan to get him to slip up and admit, through a fit of anger, that yeah, he’s that Hitler-ish guy they had suspected he was.

Khan is the greatest foe this crew will ever face. Both times.

He really pushes Starfleet people around. He’s a super genius and he’s like 5 times stronger than the average human. In his time, the 1990s, he had been a semi-benevolent (so he believed) dictator who was forced to flee into space in a pre-warp speed ship. This requires they hibernate, much like in Alien. So of course they need to wake him up and leave the other genetic freaks in cold storage while they figure out what the deal is with these 200 year old popsicles.

Khan successfully takes the ship and is going to kill everyone in reverse rank order. Slowly and painfully, of course. Only his new girlfriend returning to the Starfleet side, briefly stops him. She saves Kirk and the captain foils Khans plan.

Very quickly Khan takes control of the movie and everyone’s destiny in a big way and doesn’t let go. Intellectual Vanity and a huge reservoir of anger are his greatest assets and greatest flaws at the same time.

He gets up to speed quick on everything thats happened since he’d been marooned 15 years earlier. He’s so well written, right down to his angry incredulity on learning Kirk is now an admiral. Ricardo delivers in every way.

Khan also learns all about far too powerful “Project Genesis.” A high minded but ultimately very flawed Terra-Forming Miracle Device. Also, it makes any ship with it into an immediate Death Star! It absolutely destroys a ‘dead’ planet and remakes it. Good thing its safe on Space-station Regula One where some scientists are playing god…. and cards.

The Musical Score

The series retains the great Jerry Goldsmith and the musical score is perfect. Give it a listen, its great. He’d been with Star Trek from Day 1 and his powerful music has been all but a character to this point. It helps move the narrative along and theres some leit motif thrown in, where individual characters and ships have their own themes.

Red Hot Writer

If JJ Abrams were actually good he’d be Lawrence Kasdan in the early 80s. Writing Empire Strikes Back, The Return of the Jedi and an intriguing Sherlock Holmes movie called  The Seven Percent Solution that shows Holmes struggling with addiction.

So he knew how to use and treat existing characters. This would is a key skill jumping into a franchise. They just bagged their show runner, so they played it safe and paid for a top knotch screenwriter.

His script is a masterpiece.

So get together a drink or a soda, relax and rent and watch the Best Sci Fi Movie of All Time, certified by me. Put on Star Trek 2- The Wrath of Khan!

 

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Is The Phantom Menace Well Written? A Star Wars Essay

08 Friday May 2020

Posted by therealmcteag in Movie Reviews, Star Wars, The Phantom Menace, Uncategorized

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anakin skywalker, best sci fi podcasts, best scifi podcasts, darth sidious, disney, Disney Star Wars, EFAP, Ewan McGregor, George lucas, jj abrams, Liam Neeson, Mauler, Movie Review, obi wan kenobi, Palpatine, Qui-gon, Rags, star wars, The Fandom menace, The Force, The Jedi, The Last Jedi, The OT, The Phantom Menace, the Prequel Trilogy. The PT, The Revenge of the Sith, The Sequel Trilogy, The Sith, what is the Fandom Menace

Recent online and Youtube debates have sprung up during Quarantine regarding comparing the different Star Wars trilogies. The Prequel Trilogy was beat up by fans and critics when the films were released, but views seem to have softened.

The truth is now there really are three far worse Star Wars Chapter movies and one terrible origin movie out there. Only Rogue One has managed to work for Disney. Everything else we’ve gotten has been really bad.

While the Sequel Trilogy seems to draw universal condemnation; the Prequels are being reexamined.

Recently the EFAP youtube broadcast, (which I would call an amazing youtube follow) featured a sometimes heated debate about whether or not The Phantom Menace is well written.

To be fair, people are rightfully bored and we have time for it. I’m reacting to their specific question “Is the Phantom Menace Well Written?” I now feel like it’s a little harder to answer than you think.

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While a little acrimonious and no Rise of Skywalker Order 66 episode, it was still an amazing Star Wars discussion.

EFAP , Disney, The Real World and Me

The EFAP podcast on youtube is often brilliant. Listen to it. The Star Wars and film making discussions are probably PhD level. These guys know their stuff.

I buy in to much of what you hear on EFAP. Their views on how Disney has just botched all three of these movies they spent so much money on hold a lot of water.

I also agree with some of the political views the Star Wars people are broadcasting, but not so much when I’m in the theater! There’s a real world waiting outside with all sorts of real problems. I don’t need to be lectured or validated by a Star Wars movie! That’s a bridge too far, man.

Most likely I’m not on the same political page as the EFAP guys, I share their feelings on Star Wars and that’s as far as I’m willing to go. I don’t know what else they believe. It kind of doesn’t matter to me either. They aren’t monsters or jerks like Disney would have you believe though. They’re funny and they know this stuff better than JJ Abrams.

As far as Star Wars goes I’m about 80% in agreement with EFAP personalities Mauler, The Critical Drinker, Shad and Rags.

Do the EFAP guys go hard after Disney? You don’t pick up a label like ‘The Fandom Menace’ for being soft. But hey these Sequel movies have pushed hard to be talked about. It’s the one thing they did well. They uncorked four stinkers and this is what happens. Try making better movies, Disney!

Lastly,  on politics in Sci-Fi but this is huge; it’s emerging more and more that while geopolitical points or just the need to be on guard against oppression and protecting freedom work, anything more personal than that just doesn’t. Or at least has yet to be done well by anyone credible.

There; I’m done with the disabusing of my ignorance. I’m not planning to revisit it. Time to dissect Star Wars a bit.

 Rules of Assessment

EFAP has a great policy regarding how to assess the movies. The big rule here is that the novels, video games and comic books don’t count. The movie has to work “out of the box” so to speak. Also, writing the movie for the writers is unacceptable, they’re the artists we’re viewers. The answers need to be on the screen. This really does put the movie in perspective for me. I was tired of people using novels, comics and video games to excuse stuff anyway.  At some point it becomes expensive, un-fun Star Wars homework.

I willingly take on the mantle of Novice Objective Movie Critic. Thanks EFAP.

A Very Mixed Bag

Is this movie Well Written? It’s pretty Bi-Polar and seems to lack key information. Perhaps the opening crawl could have had more information? Or some throw away lines to illustrate the blockades origins and whatever sparked such a radical move?

At times the movies plain boring and depends on big budget CGI sets. For instance, a lot of the CGI has held up in the ho-hum senate sequences and helps getting through a Galactic Senate debate on Intergalactic Politics.

There’s so much to be said about whats bad about this movie. There’s a few really bad characters like Jar Jar Binks. Notable for being the first ever all CGI character and not much else, Jar Jar is the Rose Tico of the PT, fading into the background in subsequent films.

This movie Jar Jar’s front and center and he’s a mess. Some found him offensive he may have been meant for much younger kids. He seems real enough and present though, more real than Leia in Rise of Skywalker.

We have some really terrible dialogue pretty much all over the place. George Lucas is directing and he seemingly never gets your best performance. He doesn’t care, he’s going for your best Star Wars Performance. I’m thinking he doesn’t give you a lot of Direction.

The Galactic Republic political system is logical enough, it’s pretty effectively shown to be nearly completely broken and approaching uselessness.. And that’s advancing the story but it’s just not a lot of fun to watch.

If you wanted to see some exposition on the Republic’s size and unwieldy nature you do get that though. It’s pretty well told in words and images in the debut of the Senate Chamber. For the most part though, it’s C-Span in Space.

Still, Lucas has a complete vision and says everything he wants to say. The problem is that in accomplishing that he didn’t really entertain. A Pyrrhic Victory.

So its a Mixed Bag of mostly bad. Maybe the musical score is the best part. John Williams does well. Duel of the Fates is absolutely great. Starting to count positives with the musical score says a lot though. Not much else gets to be called Great. Costumes maybe?

The plot in and of itself, is actually NOT terrible. Its sort of good. Lucas had pondered the three movie arc a long time. A lot of stuff is also mandated and locked in by OT dialogue.

The fact its a bad movie yet still was somewhat well conceived complicates assessing it.

Then there’s some things that are just hard to justify.

Objective Problems, Lucas Style

Why is there a blockade?

It does seem nebulous but just requires closely watching a slow movie. It’s plainly said. It’s money.

In the senate chamber Senator Palpatine says the dispute started over the Taxation of Trade Routes. So that’s that. The disputes over money and trade. That’s all we get.  It’s easy to find. It’s just blurted right out, Amidala asks for a Vote of No Confidence right after at Palpatine’s suggestion. The “Badly Written Faction” was dead wrong on this.

How are they tracked?

One thing that was discussed on EFAP is “Just how does Darth Sidious trace the Queens transmission and find her and the Jedi on Tatooine?” Watching with subtitles actually answers this. It’s also pretty amazing to read the babble that Jar Jar actually says.

As far as how the Sith track them; its in the movie. In one brief exchange – They exposed themselves to being traced by even accepting the message. It’s not great but it’s said.

After Obi-wan tells them not to reply we get Sidious and Maul. They say theres a “contact trace.” I don’t think this new concept ever comes back again. It’s a contrivance to be sure, but I don’t find it that horrible. It’s done sort of bad but the answer is in there. This problem definitely took some to effort to even find. That to me makes it a bit more minor.

How Do They Get To Tatooine?

How do they get from Naboo to Tatooine if the Hyperdrive is leaking? This never really gets explained. This issue is legitimate as far as an objective flaw. How did EFAP miss it? The “Badly Written Faction” was right on this.

However the characters do not say the Hyperdrive doesn’t work at all. We don’t see them initiate hyperspace or drop out though. An Undocumented mini-jump seems to have been left out.

It’s probably a real mistake. This leaves merely the implication only that they can still move in an interstellar manner pretty quick without hyperspace because, hey- they get there. Not well done though. Sorry, George.

How they get to Tatooine is not spelled out. It is bad writing here.  This one also just slipped by even the objective obsessed EFAP guys.  It really was an objective problem.

The Separatist Blockade simply mentions to Sidious a Naboo cruiser ran the blockade and has passed out of their range. Nothing more. Nothing about having even a general idea where they went. It’s treated no different than if they did go to Hyperspace and couldn’t be tracked (ah, the good old days). That’s another reason that I think Lucas either forgot to write or cut a scene and just forgot to fix this error.

I guess it is sloppy. I can’t make it work either. Somehow its lost in other issues and doesn’t hurt the movie for me. Maybe Lucas is good at damage control and is better at everything at the end of the production then he was the beginning? Because its easy to miss and a little hard to find. Maybe he smoothed it out in editing. There’s no real way to know.

It’s cheaper and actually smarter to do what Watto says and buy a new ship.

They’re on what amounts to Air Force One and everyone is looking for it. The fact the ship itself is valuable is validated when Watto bets on it. I buy this as an objective problem. Lucas makes a mistake here too. Watto should never have said they would be better off buying another ship and created this issue. It’s a real mistake. The characters opt for the harder, dumber path.

Why are Republic Credits worthless and not exchangeable?

Republic Credits being worthless and not exchangeable anywhere on Tatooine was also a little weird and really doesn’t make sense. It’s a criminal planet, there’s no money launderer? Not movie killing, but a head-scratcher and just one more problem.

Why Leave Anakin’s Mother in Slavery?

That fact the Jedi leave Anakin’s mother in slavery when she’s spontaneously generating super powerful force users is a weird choice.  The characters fate could have still been the same in the end without leaving her to Watto. This one is the worst loose end of all. What was Mace Windu thinking on this one? I still can’t get past this.

Lucas is inspired to a point but he’s never really right on in this movie writing or directing. It’s just too ambitious in a lot of areas. Like it’s overuse of 20th Century CGI.

Questionable Choices and Affluenza 

Another issue is that a very key role is played by a child actor. This is compounded when the child actor is asked to act woodenly and Lucas-like. The first entrance of the future Vader is designed to be cute. It’s strange but not unintriguing.

Young Anakin also has to transition the fans from hating Vader to pulling for him. The movie does get there but its a tough slog. I got there after Qui-gon dies and we see Anakin as a padwan at the very end. And its just a visual. This is more a questionable choice than a mistake.

Maybe if Lucas had somehow made Anakin a padwan earlier it would have helped. Maybe he’d have been better with as a youngling apprentice doing things on purpose rather than sort of accidentally destroying a key enemy ship through a series of coincidences?

I think in the moment he writes TPM Lucas was simply too well insulated from any real feedback. There’s no real internet for him to get go and get beat up on yet, that comes in later. Does anyone think in 1996 when the wheels start really turning on this there was any person was able to say “hey George there’s some real problems here.” ? Or that they cared?

The studio knew demand was really strongly there. One example of how they knew- Bad movie Meet Joe Black was a hit that no one saw because all the people left after the Star Wars trailer and it played to empty houses. The trailer even made them money. They just let George do anything he wanted. The Studio was getting a Star Wars movie for the first time in a long, long time.  They didnt care what he made.

Script Problems

The Phantom Menace script needed doctoring it never got. It’s too bad he didnt run it by Spielberg or really good creative.  I don’t know if it could have been totally saved but this movies was worse than it had to be for sure.

The pacing of the movie is slow all the way through. There’s flashes of excitement, but usually these moments happen while another plot point is unfolding at the same time.

The great light saber duel, for instance, is about five minutes strung out over maybe 20. It might even be 3 minutes of 15, I’m unsure. The point is like all other action scenes we’ve got plots unfolding with other characters. This time it doesn’t work.

Some of this sequence is so bad it’s ‘un-Star Wars-like’ if you can say that about a Lucas movie. “Lets try spinning, that’s a good move!” is some really bad dialogue that takes you right out of the movie.

The execution and direction are bad. There’s also a few of worthy paths not taken.

The Acting

Most of the acting isn’t bad, but no one has a super great performance either.

Liam Neeson is okay but his greatest feat may be hiding how bummed out he is to be there. He mostly stays away from Star Wars after this. It probably complicates Attack of the Clones as I think he would have died in TPM anyway and been a Force Ghost in the next two movies. Seems he wanted none of it.

Ewan McGregor, on the other hand does a great Alec Guinness imitation. He owns the role from here on, but he doesn’t save the movie. He’s just not in it enough for one thing. The ensemble cast is all over the place to the point of some confusion.

Everyone else is just sort of okay. Natalie Portman is good enough in her really confusing role. She’s not to blame for any of the problems. Shes mostly just really beautiful wall paper in all three of these movies.

The use of CGI was cutting edge and not all of it holds up. Lucas is trying to do stuff, it’s just not working! He’s no Peter Jackson with the CGI at first. The Disney Plus version may be a little more enhanced than my DVD is.

Is It A Childrens Movie ?

Okay this time maybe the movie really was aimed at a slightly younger audience then the rest of the films. Is Lucas out of his element, aiming too low in age to hit the right beats? It would explain a lot. In fairness we never get a story this bad from George Lucas again.

Way back in 1997, when he was teasing the release, I remember George Lucas saying some elaborate stuff about how he viewed the Prequel Trilogy’s audience. It was fairly well thought out and all about building the fan base through appealing to six to ten year old’s instead of middle school kids with Episode 1.

He was pretty proud of this concept and later it becomes a shield against criticism with the whole “childrens movie about space wizards” defense apologists for JJ Abram’s make later.

The idea these movies are for children shows up around the release of this movie. Until then I just thought the Star Wars movies were for everyone, turns out I was wrong. So I guess I like children’s movies to a point. Perhaps we all do? The flaw in the excuse is that ‘these are some VIOLENT children’s movies.’ The adversaries had to mostly be robots or its an R for violence.

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Lucas 3 movie concept on the Prequels was daring, The movies were meant to be more mature as they went on, ageing up with the audience. Whatever the case, it gets said out loud that at least sometimes the movies were for 12 or even 8 year old’s.

It seems believable when you look at the three movies as one long story. Attack of the Clones has its plot unpacked better and is a departure from Phantom Menace. It’s not as simplistic and unpopular characters get semi-shelved. Then Revenge of the Sith has a dark, violent and somewhat mature tone. Episode III sort of justifies the journey, but that’s another blog post.

This one time the children’s movie excuse might be applicable. This one time the movie actually really seems to be aimed at younger children. Maybe that’s why it kind of sucks.

Is the Movie Just Bad?

Why lie? You could just say this and you’d be mostly right.

The Phantom Menace is definitely not a good movie. It’s fair to call it bad. I think it’s Lucas’ worst Star Wars movie. It was my worst in Theater Lucas movie experience! Especially the part where I saw it in theaters three more times thinking it must be me only walk out in the middle of the fourth viewing thinking about Stockholm Syndrome and

The complex plot is never fully unpacked. Its probably partly by design. It seems to have been Lucas’ thing. He was good at getting an audience to instantly invest in characters anyway. There’s minimal information about the nuts and bolts of the overall situation in this movie. It mostly holds up enough, it’s not good though. The conflict is pretty clearly over money.

We never find out why Naboo is such a priority. A line or two could have fixed this. It could have had some rare commodity the Trade Federation wanted or just been conveniently located on the hyperspace routes. We never get that. Its a fair point against the movie being Well Written too.

Lucas probably regrets he once boasted that the idea dawned on him one day and he wrote the script fairly quickly. It shows in The Phantom Menace. So while his concept was around a long time, he just fires off this script.

It was also the first time in a while. He’s a bit rusty and hard to advise. I doubt he redrafted it much. It seems like no one else was consulted.

In this movie Lucas is at his least successful in so many ways as a creator. The thing is he’s still better than most. His bad ideas are still overthought. He has a backstory and a reason for everything and he can spit out an answer on any aspect of his universe in most any interview. He’s wasn’t winging it, he just didn’t have the story refined enough.

Lucas is completely free to make any movie he wants and it will be funded. That cuts both ways in this movie and he owns the failure. It makes money and he doesn’t destroy his franchise, he just makes a bad Star Wars movie. The Studio didnt care, they just wanted their Star Wars movie after about 16 years of not having anything.

It was the franchises highest grossing movie. Lucas never rakes in more money but the criticisms are there. Having burnt off the Pent Up Demand the next movie had problems finding audiences by comnparison.

There’s real plot holes that got mentioned by EFAP and by people as far back as when the movie came out. The biggest issue is clearly “Why wouldn’t you break loose some cash and send a Jedi back to free Anakin’s mother from slavery?” That’s a problem that Lucas never addresses.

The journey through the center of Naboo was debated as unrealistic. On that point I just say “This is a Star Wars planet, its not even a Star Trek planet. You want to say the core is water? Okay.” That said, the sequence is a terrible mess. It’s not easy to tell who is doing what and why as we avoid a few too many monsters.

Lucas is not really mailing it in; but he has a bad day writing and directing. He gets the performances he wanted. They’re just not what everyone else wanted. The homage to serials was just too wooden in this movie. The expectations may have changed when it comes to acting styles from the release of the OT to the point this movie is made. The generation that grew up on serials was Lucas age. They weren’t running out to see it like they did in 1977. That generations grown kids were the target Lucas fails to appeal to. They were ready to follow him anywhere but this movie just kills Star Wars momentum for the entire prequel trilogy.

There’s a whole post to be made about how this movie is the moment so called “Head Canon” and Toxic Superfans start showing up. Who hasn’t had to sit through a lecture about how they need to throw 100 or so bucks into EU materials to walk into the theater? That’s just not a valid argument. The movie is supposed to simply make sense and entertain. I should be prepared enough when I fork over my twenty dollars.

One huge problem is Lucas has some dialogue and details from the Original Trilogy hemming him in a little. He tries to justify how a 10 year old can be a great pilot, but the solution is the Pod Race, which is only just so exciting and mostly played for laughs. It’s only kind of entertaining. Later when Lucas hits the ‘great pilot’ theme again during the fight on Naboo it doesn’t work either.

The final product has problems and is slow and boring. On the plus side- the damage is real but minimal to the franchise. It still feels like Star Wars, even with the warts. I could make a huge list of continuity and dialogue problems. I’ll mention just one – Theres some characters whose English accents just come and go. Notably Queen Amidala.

Lucas does sell his young Vader for the most part though. Its not a fun romp through the Galaxy Far Far Away, but its the Galaxy we liked for the most part.

The Force is explored to a point but the assumption is that you’ve seen the OT (and you have). There’s more powerful Force use on display, but just better, stronger versions of what we’ve seen for the most part. It’s logical enough a Jedi master would have more raw Force muscle than a glorified padwan like Luke is in Empire Strikes Back or a near complete Jedi Knight in Return of the Jedi.

TPM just sort of boring, though. So the limited exposition about the nature of the Force is an issue as much as the clunky dialogue. They are issues that count against the movie being well written. It’s not poorly conceived though, it just doesn’t work out.

The Midochlorian thing stays around and seems to relate to what’s called Garbage DNA in the real world. Its not in itself bad.

Viewed simply as the first of three prequels we can say we do get some more on the Force a little later. I myself also feel that some mystery surrounding the nature of the Force is good.

Directed with in a throwback fashion this only works just enough to be mostly coherent. Highlights are few and far between. A few more mistakes and it would have been awful.

You can’t say its Well Written but its not franchise-killing garbage. It’s a boring Star Wars movie and yes, overall its bad. Leave it to the Sequel Trilogy to make The Phantom Menace look like “the Good Old Days.”

Because the Prequels get better fast the movie has some fans. Its not Unwatchable.

My Verdict

It’s a Bad movie with a decent but poorly executed plot. Its only just so well written. Its an aberration among the six Lucas movies. I’m staking out a position in the middle. It’s the worst Lucas Star Wars movie. It’s only written just so well. On the other how smart was it holding off on this origin story now that we see it? Episode IV was a better starting point for sure! That doesn’t help TPM though.

The movie has an idea of where it wants to go but still meanders. It’s slow for a movie that has a lot of conflict. Its too long and its got bad dialogue. The plot was only okay. It’s only written okay. Its NOT written outright bad. The story is clear but can be hard to follow as things unfold so slowly.

The plots is pretty good but the movie is sub-par. If being immersed in Lucas’ Galaxy is your thing you’ll enjoy some of it. It wasn’t the best but is no longer the worst Star Wars movie. It’s a below average movie and a below average Star Wars movie and a fairly bad movie in general. Its about a Two Stars out of Five kind of movie.

I dont know if saying it sets up the next two movies well is redeeming to this movie in and of itself. Its still not good.

In a word “Underwhelming.” I guess “It never completely falls apart and just keeps plodding along” is my one sentence summation of positives.

If it got a grade its a C, maybe a C plus. One to ten as far as well written? It’s like a 6. I mean, there’s so many much worse movies for one thing.

It’s also a pretty bad movie, but there’s four that are much, much worse Star Wars movies out there now.

Perversely, its now mediocre among Star Wars movies. Thanks, Disney, you Force Healed The Phantom Menace to fourth fifth worst Star Wars movie!

Epilogue – The Internet Saves Star Wars

Around the time of the release of The Phantom Menace things like AOL get social media going and Lucas has anonymity again on the internet. This was the honest feedback Hollywood money men weren’t giving him and never would.

I’m convinced the internet revolution and it taking on its present form grounded a newly anonymous Lucas online, where people would just unload on the movie and say what they wanted.

My only real proof is that pretty much everything people hated was addressed in some form in the subsequent movies. There’s a darker story unfolding with things like more lightsaber duels, chases and space battles. Things sorely missing from TPM.

There’s a case to be made Attack of the Clones is a fairly good movie. It strongly departs from the stuff that killed TPM.

But the Internet hasn’t happened yet. The Phantom Menace was conceived and made before any real social media at all. The world was different. Cell phones could only make calls and send text messages when this movie comes out.

Here’s the EFAP Debate. This blog post is my theories, heres several others should you want to hear them.

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Skipping Rise of Skywalker was the Start of Fan Rebellion Against Disney

26 Sunday Jan 2020

Posted by therealmcteag in Disney Star Wars, jj abrams, Uncategorized

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Tags

baby yoda, Carrie Fisher, DC, DC Universe doomed by JJ Abrams, EFAP, episode 9, Humour, jj abrams serial killer, kelvin timeline, Kylo Ben, luke skywalkers lightsaber, Mauler, mystery box, Palpatine, rian johnson disaster, sci-fi, solo movie, Star Trek, Star Trek Picard, star wars, star wars movie fails, Star Wars the Last Jedi, star wars the rise of skywalker, the force awakens, thelast jedi awful

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Well, howd y’all like that Episode 9? The lowest rated Star Wars Movie of all time is still slipping on Rotten Tomatoes.  I dont think its going to stabilize anytime soon. JJ Abrams is now a Serial Killer of Sci-Fi franchises.

Let’s look at the Wake of Destruction he hath wrought.

For Starters; thanks to JJ Abrams 7 years after was basically run off the Final Frontier Star Trek is still reeling and very much needs the Picard show to work out or that might just be it.

Devastatingly bad ideas like the hated Kelvin Timeline are still just tying the hands of the creatives. Bad Star Trek Discovery  is losing a plagiarism suit to a video game and it shows. File that bad show under “not good enough for regular TV” Its bad Star Trek and bad TV. Hopefully they can abandon the Discovery ship out some plot friendly back door? I would suggest “They were ALWAYS from another Dimension” or “They’re ONLY from the Hated Kelvin Timeline”? Just brainstorming.

Why listen to me I’m just the guy who championed Rey being a clone made from LUKE’S SEVERED HAND! Something Palpatine would have been able to get! It’s better than anything about her we got from JJ Abrams in these movies at any time.

Seriously I’m just gonna say it; the Luke’s hand idea is better than all three JJ Abram’s origin stories on Overpowered Rey. Okay, its fan fiction, but the movies awful and its just to prove it didnt have to be. We just filled in one HUGE plot hole problem using what they call creativity. JJ Abrams is supposed to be great at this? Why’s he losing a brainstorming contest to a blogger?

First of all the story starts elsewhere. Yup, the movie starts with a reveal in the blurb that fans of Fortnite already knew. Old Palpy is alive?! It’s such a bad idea maybe people wrote it off as a little canon fun, but NO! A video game starts the story.

JJ Abrams unspools the plot of the movie in a shock reveal in a video game. Yup. And if you didn’t play that game he sort of think’s you came in unprepared. Abrams is that dick professor who kicked you out of class as an example to others.

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So if you ‘cheap-ed out’ or didn’t finish the game here’s the deal – despite being dropped a few miles and being blown up twice, the Emperor is back. Don’t bother thinking too much about it, its never explained. Like so much else in these Sequel Movies things just happen.

So far since Disney took over and hired him JJ’s been destroying Star Wars. I was stunned how badly he did. I mean, I knew he would fail, but WOW!

I can hold my head up knowing I didn’t waste my money on this Rise of Skywalker turd. Sure it made its Billion Dollars, but it took longer than the other movies to hit the number. The reviews weren’t mixed, they were excoriating. Still, for a day or two the fan score held out on Rotten Tomatoes, then it just collapsed. What went wrong? It was JJ Abrams and his half-assed Star Wars vision…or should say lack of vision?

Disney has made five of these Star Wars movies and only one is good in the form of Rogue One. Solo is at best mediocre and its poor box office take really upped the pressure for Episode 9 to be great. Wow did that ever not work out.

Star Wars is supposed to be about Rebelling against an Evil Empire, not submitting to one! It’s that simple. In this case, the Evil Empire is Disney.  Darth Abrams was a bad choice from the word go. The signs were there but people ignored them

JJ Abrams – The Man Who Kills Franchises

The problem is JJ Abrams can only write beginnings, and even then only by creating issues he cant fix because hes simply not that creative.  Abrams being stuck in his schematic “Mystery Box Method” of always doing a shock reveal and the endless lens flare just gets old fast. He’s incorrigible.

He’d failed to end the show LOST acceptably and made perhaps the most anger generating final episode ever. There’s a reason LOST isn’t in re-runs. It was all false canon and zero pay off.  It might be the worst series ending of all time. But people convinced themselves he was David Lynch. He’s so not.

Then one bad movie revealed all and the failures have pretty much always gone down the same way.

JJ Abrams created a movie so bad that it exonerated every other Star Trek writer or director in TV or film to that time. We’re talking all time low. The Rise of Skywalker implodes almost the same way.  A quick look back at JJ Abram’s recent work in Sci-Fi is informative.

Only 10 years ago he was the New and Forever Star Trek Creator. It was a marriage made in Hell. Movie one was surprisingly good. It seemed like we’d be okay. At first glance it was a lot better than Force Awakens. Then he very quickly falls off a cliff.

Awful sequel Star Trek Into Darkness was just a disaster. The word tropes started getting thrown around. If we unpacked it, really its just another one of his high stakes movies where the bad guy has a Death Star like weapon. He lied to the fans to make the story pop more, and fans hated the movie.

Rhymin’ and Stealin’ – How JJ Abrams Movies Implode

From the false flag pre movie rumors and outright lies in the early pre publicity right up to the botched rollout, Star Trek Into Darkness was a heap of shit you knew wasn’t going to work! Abrams sort of ends up telling people they watched his movie wrong while also saying he actually did blow a few scenes in the movie in the publicity leading up to the release. He apologized for inartful jamming in an exploitive scene of a woman getting undressed in front of Kirk. He was right, its done like shit. This starts the trend of JJ’s movies falling apart after a half hour and then being somewhat worse as every increment of 10 minutes goes by til the movie finally just stops (rather than ends).

It’s also maybe the first time he kills and then un-kills a beloved key character using a plot device that just wasn’t given enough attention to seem viable. Basically a Supersoldier Blood Infusion to bring back a dead Kirk. Anything out there in pop culture is fair game. Let’s call it the start of shamelessly stealing from Marvel too (more recently Rise of Skywalker re-used the end of Avengers-Endgame).

Benedict Cumberbatch’s career faltered momentarily and he needed to stay out of America til the stench cleared. For a minute there it really looked like he didn’t know how to act. Cumberbatch has since more than redeemed himself. We know now it was bad dialogue and bad direction. And a movie with an introduced that just needed to go somewhere. Like even just some planet, do some Star Trek stuff, and fails miserably.

Around the same time people starting listening to JJ’s insulting commentary on his first Star Trek movies special edition back when DVDs were all the rage. Let me tell you no one can make their own work seem so bland and undercut their authenticity better than Abrams.

At some point he’s maybe drunk or stoned or something and riffing on his movie. There’s an accidental admission that his first Star Trek just didn’t work at all. The he lets go it had a lot of cut scenes (which we saw) and that they’d gotten lost in a couple of rabbit holes. This only makes you wish the movie had gone in a different direction. Moreover the left out ideas seem really interesting.  Still, the movies pretty good and the franchise seem set up.

The JJ Uncorks a wild one- while discussing the “Angry Future Romulan’s” it becomes obvious a lot of writing happened post filming and it seemed three Star Trek projects leading in different directions were unified by a few lines enabling dialogue and a genius editor. What role CGI played I can’t say but the approach being ad hoc is out there

It was also just unsettling to hear. Sounded a little bit like maybe he just got lucky. Now we know that’s actually what happened. The movies one long introduction anyway, so it was deceptively good. The guy writes good beginnings, but then he can’rt advance without all sorts of canon destroying parent killing trope-y-ness.

Scapegoating Fans

In interviews JJ always seemed to be passively aggressively attacking the fans. I lost count of how many times he criticized the original show or anyone who’d be so dumb as to watch it. I guess because Felicity was available on DVD? I can’t figure him out; I can only forecast his movies by low-balling everything and assuming he’ll miss the mark. This is simplistic, I know, but it has worked. Its worked for essentially 5 straight movies where he’s head creative. Why should he get a break for The Last Jedi? He was in charge, he was too into his 2 years off to care and when he paid attention again Star Wars was seriously fucked up.

JJ’s basic schtick was – I fixed your lousy Star Trek.

Soon he was gone from the franchise. These traits were well out there though and he gets the Star Wars gig.

The Destruction of Star Wars

All JJ Abrams problems would be even worse when he got to Star Wars. Out of control parent killing. Having it both ways on killing characters by ping-ponging from life to death in a flimsily explained way. Fleeing in shuttles, over and over. Crashing your ship into an enemy ship. Bad Guys with some kind of Death Star Variant. Lying to the fans trying to make the movie pop more. Failing to pay off story elements (Luke’s lightsaber’s journey from Bespin to Rey’s hands?) and lots of false canon.

Firstly, to most fans, it wasn’t that badly broken. Turning Kirk into Indiana Jones and boasting about it made Kirk predictable. You knew from Indy that “When he fights doesn’t so much win as gets lucky because he can take a beating” and all the other traits were there too.

At this point JJ had double dipped by both angering the Star Trek fans and  signing with Disney and he was pretty much on his way out to go and destroy Star Wars. While we now know its because he cant write, at the time it seemed like he was trying to kill the Star Trek franchise.

A few humiliating TED Talks about the schematic nature of his film making gave away way too much. And it’s now obvious he just has no plan. Its probably why they bought in a different director and writer to write a middle for the series.

At this point some of us realize the movies are just getting worse. And the amount of homework we have to do to understand whats going on starts to really go up and become a boring grind.

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Others bash Rise of Skywalker better than I ever can, but we all know that  all through this Sequel Trilogy they’ve treated the original characters with great disrespect. Carrie Fisher had to die to be treated respectfully and by then only so much could be fixed.  So we wont dwell on the problems Carrie passing caused. There’s no need. There’s plenty else wrong with this movie.

It’s a Fetch-Quest Video game like The Division. Except not as engaging.  Thrown together with the highlight being Babu Frick and Power Ranger Felicity. Keri Russell will make a fortune and possibly was on set 3 hours.  Its all a joke to JJ!

Soft Death scenes and what seem like true losses of characters are just bought back with little explanation or a bad explanation.

Now we have an insanely bad Star Wars movie I was able to watch online with a few slick moves. EFAP and Mauler on youtube have a combined 14 hours of podcast on just what a disaster The Rise of Skywalker is. One thing’s for sure Star Wars Stockholm Syndrome, while real, was broken to pieces. No amount of fanciful justifications will ever make people see one of these if the trailer is bad again.

Just because the real world is  a mess is our escape from the real world to be a mess as well? I wont pay for this until the quality is there. That means 8 weeks of Disney Plus a year to watch the baby Yoda Show at this point.

JOIN THE REBELLION! If you saw this movie dont see it again! And dont stream it! that’s just rewarding Disney and they’ve taken that as a licence.

The Last Jedi brutally woke us up to the fact no one had clue how to write this stuff and the Lucas dialogue is now sounding a lot better. Seriously we have that much fail here

That JJ was too lazy or damaged to bother giving us a movie that made sense and since The Last Jedi had already shattered some canon Abrams had a blank check to fail.  So he did. Every bad thing we heard made it into the movie.

ros_han

One things his Star Wars movie did at the end was unite the fans in anger.

From Palpatine’s horrible military plan built around shock reveals, to trying to un-do Rian Johnson’s failed vision of an old, cowardly, grumpy failed child murderer Luke Skywalker, nothing worked. Throw in some really bad continuity issues for fun too.

luke_TLJ_milk

 

So we got action instead of substance.  We’ve got lots of things jammed in together quickly. Like all our heros in one place at the same time. For the first time in this series. At least it was on the Falcon!

Who are these new characters and is anyone else upset they were named Zora and Zaina but were unrelated? Not too creative.

Tales of a better cut of the movie abound. The amount of cognitive dissonance it takes to believe Disney killed the movie or had some kind of hard cap on run time is preposterous. An excellent movie could have flirted with three hours. The idea this horrible movie that makes no sense was made in spite of better product is ridiculous.

He will say we watched it wrong soon. We weren’t wrong, it was the same ending as the Avengers Endgame, just done badly this time.

So much was lost in the shuffle. The preposterous and unexplained journey of Luke Skywalker’s light saber from Bespin to Rey is a novel few will pony up for, and just one of many pay offs that this trilogy fails to deliver.

If your name is JJ Abrams the only price you pay for failure is critical blog posts and youtube content providers killing you. He’s off to destroy DC. It’s a mind blowing end to a contract that probably just should have just been given to Peter Jackson.

I was right. This movie is a streaming rental.

So while the Baby Yoda show seems to be promising, it seems the Marvel People will now get what’s left of Star Wars, and really, its for the best.

Pour yourselves a drink Star Wars fans, JJ Abrams is gone. Now dont be an idiot and pay another hundred bucks to buy the comics and novels they will crank out to try to un-fuck this turd. There should be a price for failure.

If you go out there buying the new merchandise and help them to a point where THIS movie is a success? The movies will keep getting worse.

ros_blurb2

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