Topic: Star Wars IX The Rise of Skywalker

[pokepal148]

I also hate the art style. I never liked it. It's offputing. Some styles put you off of shows. It looks like if you got a bunch of Egyptian New Kingdom statues and marionetted them around. It hits my uncanny valley reflex hard.

It's funny that you mention the artstyle actually. Two of my favorite TCW story arcs (the later seasons started doing 4 episode long story arcs that basically form their own movies when binged) are "The Bad Batch" and "Crystal Crisis" arcs. The Bad Batch is an absolute treat although it basically requires you to watch a bunch of the other clone focused episodes to get the full experience out of. It's incredibly dark and the reveal that Echo survived the Citadel arc and what ended up happening to him is incredibly haunting. The Bad Batch themselves are also a fun group of characters

Crystal Crisis is just a fun romp with absolutely incredible banter between Obi-Wan and Anakin but it also has a direct tie in with A New Hope with the giant lightsaber crystal that the episode focuses on being strongly implied to be capable of being used to help power something like a Death Star Superlaser. I strongly recommend it. All you need to know is that Ahsoka decided to leave the Jedi order at the end of season 5 and as I'm sure you can imagine Anakin is taking it really well.

Both of these arcs were released as unfinished story reels (although Bad Batch is being finished for the Disney+ season 7 revival thingy.) They're fully voiced but the animation is incomplete, there are still placeholder models in some of the scenes, it's kind of a mess in terms of visuals, I mean look at this:

for BNM

TCW's artstyle is kind of offputting for me in the early seasons because the animation just feels kind of sloppy between the early seasons being kind of rushed and the fact that the team didn't have the resources to fully realize the style they were going for but once George Lucas started throwing his own money into the project the animation becomes absolutely spectacular.

Rebels was always kind of "just there" for me in terms of animation. It has a style, it works, but while it has it's moments I never felt like it was as impressive as TCW was and a fair amount of that is that Disney unsurprisingly decided to have them work with a budget smaller than George Lucas's bank account.

To give context on my opinion of the prequel trilogy: Hayden Christenson is generally an absolute trainwreck as Anakin (although most of that is the writing and direction he got) and Jar Jar was a bit annoying in TPM although honestly it's more offputting for me to see him basically be reduced to a background character in ROTS because of the backlash he got than anything. Otherwise they're perfectly fine. I honestly prefer episodes 1 and 3 over The Force Awakens personally.

[Spak-Spang]

The first seasons of the Clone Wars were not very good so I gave up on the series.  I heard everyone saying that it got better and better...and I can definitely tell that the later seasons have much better animation and art design. 

Rebels is almost all bad.  The first seasons tonally were awful, and then the second half when it was getting interesting story wise they ended up dealing with some of the more interesting drama with no gravitas.  The additions they added to the show didn't feel like it fit in Star Wars universe but a cartoon, which is fine for a cartoon, but this is supposedly canonized stuff.  Light Speed Running Wolves?  Darth Maul and other Sith using light sabers to FLY!!!  It was all just stupid.  Yes, there were some really interesting and great moments in there, but not enough.

[nickmitch]

Jar Jar is that annoying sidekick character that's in every kids movie nowadays.  I think the biggest issue is that he might've been ahead of his time.  The Lemurs from Madagascar got their own show, the Minions from Despicable Me got their own movie, these are all the same character.  Jar Jar as a thing missed the mark completely and was too much in the foreground to be likeable.

[oohhboy]

He wasn't some sort of sidekick innovation. Sure it had cutting edge fidelity, motion capture, but that has nothing to do with why he failed.

Jar Jar was poorly designed visually flopping everywhere, that voice, too incompetent and his behaviour were far, far too clown like while not remotely funny. Constantly undermining the SW atmosphere. He was someone no one wanted to spend time with including other characters which reinforce the audience's rightly poor perception of him.

Supporting characters in movies always have something endearing about them, a redeeming quality, maybe witty dialogue, some level of usefulness to the characters that isn't accidental if we are meant to like them.

A great example is Mike The TV in Reboot. Everybody hates him in show but we like him because his shtick is funny, their complaints is part of the joke. He is animated very lively, full of expression. He has agency, not everything about him is serendipity.

[nickmitch]

I wouldn't call him an innovation, but he is definitely a trope which to me has been gaining more prominence in tv/film.

But Jar Jar didn't work for all those reasons you said: he lacks utility, has an annoying voice, and just isn't funny.  I'd add that he also lacks the "cuteness" that those types of characters tend to have.  You can see what Lucas was going for with the character, but he flat out fails at every aspect.  He also has zero appeal to an adult audience.  Good cartoons, especially ones designed for children, are created in such a way that they can amuse an adult while entertaining a child.  Jar Jar is the movie equivalent of someone jingling a set of keys over your head.  That might work for some audiences, but everyone else is just gonna be annoyed.

[pokepal148]

I'm just going to leave this here:

for BNM

[Spak-Spang]

I will just say Jar Jar reminded me of C3PO from the original series.  He was supposed to be comic relief and help a movie series about War to have some lighthearted moments.  However, where C3PO was annoying but lovable, because we all know a pessamist like that.  Jar Jar is completely unrelatable.  Mix that in with the possible racist like tones on display not from Jar Jar, but from the themes of the story on the planet.  Finally, Jar Jar ends up even ruining one of the most potentially epic scenes in the entire Star Wars franchise with the Gungan's being outclassed in battle someone figuring out a way to defeat the robot armies, by making it a slapstick comedy event. 

[nickmitch]

It also helps that C3PO was playing the straight man to R2D2.

[pokepal148]

When Lucas made the Clone Wars team do a Jar Jar focused episode they often tried to pair him up with some serious character (which ironically included C3PO at some point) to basically serve as the straight man for him which helps but I feel like the only time they actually struck gold with Jar Jar was when they paired him up with the other super unlikable prequel character, Mace Windu. The two operate on such opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of Mace being super serious and no nonsense while Jar Jar is... Jar Jar that just seeing them together on screen is kind of amusing in and of itself.

[ThePerm]

It also helps that C3PO was playing the straight man to R2D2.

How can we be so sure?

[Adrock]

It also helps that C3PO was playing the straight man to R2D2.

How can we be so sure?

R2D2: *beeps*
C-3PO: You watch your language.

[oohhboy]

I just assume R2D2 is crass and swears alot.

[pokepal148]

Why stop at R2-D2? There's a reason they had James Earl Jones dub over the voice of Darth Vader.

https://youtu.be/hO5h2LONB9g

[oohhboy]

HAHHHAAAAHA

[BeautifulShy]

I'm surprised this hasn't been posted yet.  New trailer for The Rise of Skywalker.

For BnM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n1T3HxHd7Y

I liked the intro showing all the main moments throughout the whole series and then when the actual new footage came in I was amazed at some points and shocked with others like near the end with Rey.

[oohhboy]

Nahhhh. Pretty embarrassing to think this is professional work. The opening is like a funeral montage. Remember thisss??! Well we murdered them all and shovelled dirt into the grave. CONSUME.

I am dead.

[nickmitch]

I actually liked the footage.  I thought it looked good and the ending was pretty surprising.

I see people posting the .gif oohhboy posted and it's either with a playful tone of "Lol, it's like a swiss army knife!" or a more angry "How dare they make a lightsaber that folds!!!".  Either way I think it makes sense she'd shift from a typical sword to something closer to the staff she had as her primary weapon her whole life.

[oohhboy]

Folding light sabre is dumb af, bordering on satire like robot Chicken. Like Kylo's sabre it's try hard. Just duel wield and have them join up on the end or have a breakable staff. Folding it has no utility. Great if you what some Kung Fu action grip on a toy.

[nickmitch]

Probably makes it easier to hang off the hip.

[Spak-Spang]

Kylo's sabre Cross makes sense if you can show how it can used offensively and defensively.  Thinking you blocked an attack only to have Kylo twist his wrist and stab slice you would be cool.  Sliding down the saber to the light saber hilt would also help sell it.

[Adrock]

I like Kylo Renā€™s lightsaber. Its overall jankiness says a lot about his character. Kylo Ren is inexperienced, and the unstable red ā€œbladeā€ is a nice visual cue of his indecision to completely align with the Dark Side.

[oohhboy]

Neither movie showed he was inexperienced, a bitch man baby of a punching bag for sure. It's like the writer thinks the only thing about the dark side is anger. Kylo's existence is to get owned.

He isn't conflicted about the dark side. He doesn't know what he wants or what he is doing, he has zero ideology neither does the first order with the goal of taking over the galaxy just because. He has no goal other than be angry. Killing the past is nonsense. He kills Snoke and goes right back to kill the resistance. Even then he hands off the responsibility to Hux as usual while shouting random orders.

I wouldn't read much into his sabre, personal preference is the simple answer. In the writer room they thought it looked cool. It's like commenting on the deep meaning that Luke's light sabre is green. It's green because it can't be red as red would make it harder to follow the action.

[pokepal148]

J.J. just refuses to accept that no matter what he'll never top Dave Filoni and his helicopter lightsabers.

for BnM

[Adrock]

He isn't conflicted about the dark side. He doesn't know what he wants

Thatā€™s... what conflicted means.

[oohhboy]

He isn't conflicted about the dark side. He doesn't know what he wants

Thatā€™s... what conflicted means.

No. When I say he doesn't know what he wants I mean that in the literal sense. He isn't arguing with himself or judging the pro and cons, nor he torn between moral choices. it's like he is at the super market and can't figure out if he wants to buy food so he stares at the ceiling because someone told him to.

J.J. just refuses to accept that no matter what he'll never top Dave Filoni and his helicopter lightsabers.

for BnM

When I first saw it years ago I laughed so hard. It's so out there and stupid it looped around to being sort of good.