Tommy Siegel | Bluesky
Transcript
A Helpful Guide To Star Wars vs Star Trek
Star Wars
[Image of Han Solo in Tommy’s style]
- Don’t start with the ‘first’ movie, let me tell you where to start
- Looks like ruined farm equipment in space
- In summary: the past was horrible
- JJ Abrams ruined it
Star Trek
[Image of Jean Luc Picard in Tommy’s style]
- Don’t start with the first season, let me tell you where to start
- Looks like a cruise ship in space
- In summary: the future is incredible
- JJ Abrams ruined it
JJ abrams is responsible for what nutrek is today, all flash and no substance that KURTZMAN happily copied.
pre-disney star wars decent, but not after disney bought the franchise, and turned it intoa slop machine, and its basically just drama in space at least for the current ones.
JJ Abrams
I think you mean Jar Jar Abramsit would be funny if he took over STAR wars franchise, or allowed kurtzman to do it.
Uh … he’s tall?
Absolutely start with the first season of Star Trek! What the fuck kind of nonsense is that? The original series is a gods damned masterpiece! Except for I, Mudd, just skip that one, it sucks.
I think that was about TNG? People often say start when Riker gets his beard and then go back later if you like it.
I can agree on that.
tng first season was awkward, trying to find its legs.
The worst episode of TOS is the one with the planet of children where Kirk puts the rizz on a little tweenage girl. I think it’s called Miri. Skip that one.
Oh yeah, I completely blocked that one out. That one is disgusting, definitely a skip.
TOS is what got me watching almost all of Star Trek in the last 3 years. It was the damn star trek memes on lemmy (when there used to be a lot less content) that made me check it out, and I got hooked. I love me some sci-fi, what can I say
i started with TNG, i assume most of us did, but i dont watch the older ones except some of the important clips.
I can hear it now…
HarCOURT!
Disney ruined Star Wars.
Should’ve just used the Thrawn Trilogy as Episodes VII through IX. But that would’ve eventually lead to
spoiler
Chewie dying on Sernpidal
and think how much that would’ve hurt merchandise sales…
I still believe that they should wipe the last three as “legacy” or whatever the fuck they call the old cannon and go full send with the Thrawn Trilogy.
I agree, but I can’t see it happening until they’ve milked this “timeline” dry.
Are Chewie toys still top sellers?
I don’t know, but his death was the primary reason they killed the Expanded Universe. The merchandise aspect is my cynic interpretation, because the stated non-reason why it’d be a problem makes zero sense.
The real reason was they wanted to go a different direction and shed the EU baggage (and potential royalties) while reimagining the stuff they liked (like Thrawn).
I’ll die on this hill. JJ Abrams didn’t ruin Star Wars. He just didn’t do anything new with Star Wars. Rian Johnson ruined Star Wars. He was unwilling to yes-and any of the mystery boxes and plot threads Abrams set up in The Force Awakens and essentially ruined the entire trilogy by burning any plot that could have happened in the third film.
If nothing else, the complete disrespect to Finn’s implied arc was unforgivable. That boy was going to be a Jedi.
J. J. Abrams established that Star Wars was just a repeating formula rather than a developing story, which would be bad enough, but in order to make the formula repeat he also made it canon that everything that happened in the original trilogy was ultimately meaningless.
If nothing else, the complete disrespect to Finn’s implied arc was unforgivable. That boy was going to be a Jedi.
I must’ve watched all the wrong trailers because I didn’t even know Rey was going to be a character.
Based on what I saw, I thought “The Force Awakens” was going to be about a disillusioned Storm Trooper who “awakens” as the new Jedi to save the galaxy. Would have been an amazing story of redemption. Instead we got… Well… You know.
I’d watch that movie.
I kinda respected that they were hiding who the new Jedi was in the marketing. They kept it enough of a secret theult didn’t have many Rey toys ready to go. They did the same thing with Grogu in The Mandalorian.
I’ll criticize Disney for a lot of things, but they do actually seem to allow some of their filmmakers to make artistic decisions that have negative impacts on potential merch sales.
The Force Awakens was crap but it tended to get the benefit of the doubt because there were all these mysterious threads that might be going somewhere interesting. But the problem is, JJ Abrams had no clue about where he was going with any of it. That’s unforgivable. You need some idea of the story you want to tell. Or just hire a fucking writer ffs. Plenty of people know how to tell a story, JJ Abrams just isn’t one of them. I don’t want to let Rian Johnson off the hook but it was already on a bad trajectory before he crashed it into the ground.
He’s literally been quoted as saying he didn’t realize that the MAIN LINE STAR WARS FILM was going to be PART OF A TRILOGY.
They needed a show runner. Someone there who at least knew the gist of the whole story and had the authority to override director egos.
He did write and directed it but he was still under Kathleen’s watch. She has admitted they had no overall vision for the trilogy and just winged it.
personally, I think Rise of Skywalker is the weakest of the three.
Totally Agree, I just blame The Last Jedi for that.
Edit:
aaaand. I also blame the fandom.
Rose was part of the story by the end of The Last Jedi. Whatever opinions fans had about her sudden appearance, I take personal offense that Disney caved and relegated her to the shadows for Rise of a Skywalker, replacing her with another love interest for Finn. That’s just bad story telling and kinda spineless. The character and the actor deserved better.
That added to the narrative whiplash and tone shift in the trilogy and it 100% didn’t have to be that way. It was capitulation and it further hurt a narrative that was already hurting from all the twists of the previous movie.
Neither ruined Star Wars. That honor goes to George Lucas and Episode 1.
Yes. It’s weird how much people on the Internet seem to revere the prequels. They’re terrible. Awful dialog, ridiculous plot contrivances, de-mystifying the force, turning Yoda into some kind of Tasmanian Devil, etc. etc. etc.
The sequels were just beating a dead horse.
The prequels were coarse and rough and they got everywhere :(
As individual movies, the prequels certainly had their flaws, but they left the universe in a more interesting state than it was in previously. Abrams turned Star Wars into just another soulless Hollywood sequel factory.
George made Midichlorians and turned the force into something in which you needed to be born gifted, rather than something you could aspire to.
He turned Boba Fett into just another clone and Darth Vader into an angsty teen.
He created a world where everyone forgot about the Jedi in 16 years to the point where Han thinks of it as a hokey religion when as a kid he would have seen the propaganda of the Republic’s main generals being Jedi and then them “betraying” the Republic during order 66.
The sequels might not be good, but let’s not pretend the prequels were better just because you grew up with them.
I can’t argue the quality of the prequels with indifference. I was too young when they dropped to hate them. I will say that they’re flawed and episode III is good because I watched the Clone Wars. The prequels weren’t great, but the sequels were essentially sabotaged by a proud director.
I will admit that Genndy Tartikovsky’s Clone Wars show is perhaps the greatest piece of Star Wars media to ever exist, but as far as the movies go the prequels were overall sabotaged by an auteur’s pride and him being in a position where no one could tell him “No”.
What potential answer to the mystery box of “Luke has hidden himself and completely cut himself off from the force” is there other than self exile? Rian Johnson didn’t ruin anything, there’s just no satisfying answer to such a question. If you dislike the answer, it’s because the question is bad to begin with. Abrams set that up.
I would ask you to consider why Yoda did the same? beyond the obvious of Palatine trying to kill him? Wasn’t Kylo/Snoke trying to do the same to Luke? Yoda was camped on a dark side nexus or something IIRC from the various sources.
but self exile doesn’t need to mean surly and in video game media we have seen Luke running around doing a bunch of stuff outside of the eyes of the new republic. What reason could obi-wan have for letting vader kill him? fans ask in the 70s after leaving the theater.
It’s not about it being a self exile. It’s about the portrayal of his personality and beliefs in that exile.
Yoda was a failed Jedi. Luke succeeded in RotJ by going against his and Obi-Wan’s teachings by attempting to redeem Vader rather than just killing him. Luke’s whole character arc was about finding a new path rather than repeating the mistakes of the previous generation.
Every example of a Jedi Luke has had is a Jedi that put themselves into self exile.
I’d agree, his first one was a adequate, but if it did more, Johnson probably would have picked up the story.
Rian Johnson ruined Star Wars.
Every once in a while I see a post about what a brilliant director this guy really is and that I oughta give his other movies a chance and I think maybe I should try them… but then I think: No. Some things are unforgivable.
Tell me about it. Do you know how long it took me to watch Knives Out?
Making Finn a Jedi just because he had misgivings about being a Stormtrooper, and held a lightsaber once?
Homie, Luke was a moisture farmer who shot rats and talked to a hobo.
Because his touching the force woke him form his programing. Kylo sensed it. I didn’t say he was going to be a good Jedi. but his competency was on par with Kylo in a way that Rey’s was not. Rey was outshining both of them. Her whole deal was set to be that she had raw power but didn’t want to play either side.
There is a general rule in film making and story telling. You don’t do something without purpose. Finn holding the lightsaber was signalling, yes. It was narrative foreshadowing. checkov’s gun given weight by the promotions for the movie which had Finn holding the lightsaber. In the film, He didn’t just hold a light saber or use it quickly for some one-off maneuver. Finn wielded the lightsaber. He later stepped up to Kylo and got thrashed, giving the character a path and motivation to improve. Rey was going to have her own light saber eventually, maybe even a saber staff.
I swear people just don’t have media literacy anymore. John Boyega was very vocally pissed by the end of the trilogy. Finn spent all of IX trying to tell Rey something. It’s been mostly considered that he was trying to tell her that he was force sensitive. A fact we likely would have learned in the previous movie but we never heard at all in the trilogy. Last I heard he was only willing to come back because Dave Filoni spoke to him personally. Even after that he might be getting shafted by behind the scenes politics.
Disney is still trying to fix what Johnson did to Star Wars in cinema.
You don’t do something without purpose.
there’s one of the most analyzed moments ever, because there was no reason.
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I actually kinda like that Abram’s Star Trek takes place in an alternate universe. In that way, it hasn’t ruined anything. None of his movies are in the Prime universe.
And I like that Disney doesn’t have mind control drugs (yet?) so I can just consider their shit a seperate universe that Luke hallucinated after banging his head too hard on one of those doors designed more for looking like a cool sci fi door and less for being easy to go through without banging your head.
But they did blow up Romulus in the Prime Universe and give us Picard.
The Sequels aren’t bad, it’s just always been popular to hate on the new Star Wars thing, has been since Empire.
If they aren’t “bad”, they’re at best “okay.” And that’s disappointing after a long hiatus in movies that had been filled with a shared universe (with its own peaks and troughs) full of interesting and pretty-much accepted expansions to the lore.
And, this is entirely unsubstantiated, but I feel like much of the design of the new story was shaped by trying to skirt around copyright/“inspiration” issues by avoiding even ideas from the old expanded universe. Basically constructing a story around what was left in a “legally safe concepts” bucket.
- The very next guy to do it managed to be much worse than Abrams.
Debatable. Anyway, the very next guy after the very next guy managed to be infinitely worse than both. What was his name again?
The guys that also ruined game of thrones?
Ironically Game of Thrones was ruined because the show runners got an offer to do a Star Wars movie. They turned down HBOs offer to do more episodes of GoT and instead hurried through and botched the ending because they wanted to get started on that Star Wars project. They botched GoT so bad that Disney got rid of their movie. Serves them right.
Lol, if that’s true, it really is one of those situations when you drop everything you carried trying to catch something unimportant
Nah. VIII had a few missteps, but it was better then the rehashed plot of the first, and far better then the mess that followed.
8 is the best Star Wars movie
What the actual fuck? Episode VIII is quite literally the worst mainline Star Wars movie made. I consider even episode IX to be better, not by a big margin but still better for no other reason than to try and salvage the clusterfuck that was episode VIII. Here’s a short list of things episode VIII got wrong.
- Threw out pretty much every story thread Episode VII set up
- Did a complete character assassination of Luke
- Turned Leia into a force user because, well I don’t even know why.
- The entire casino world plotline which is not just entirely irrelevant to the plot but also completely fucks with timeline of events.
- That whole thing between the purple haired captain? and Poe. Especially that super secret plan that for no fucking reason was never explained to the rest of the crew.
- Breaking the whole hyperspace explanation and the whole space combat consistency with the hyperspace kamikaze
- The asian lady plot
- The ending sets up literally nothing for episode IX
The whole movie is one massive misstep that derailed the entirely sequel trilogy. I get Episode VII wasn’t anything magnificent but the entire point of episode VII was to reaffirm to the fans (who were skeptical about the continuation of Star Wars considering Episode III didn’t really leave on a high note and Episode VI kinda tied up the loose ends) that the series is going somewhere and isn’t nosediving off a cliff. That’s why they effectively redid the Episode IV plotline, because it was a safe starting point that sets up characters for episodes VIII and IX. Abrams even left a rough draft for VIII and IX but then Johnson was given full creative control to throw the entire trilogy draft out the window and do whatever the fuck he wanted. We don’t know if episode IX could’ve ever been good because episode VIII fucked the entire trilogy so hard it became impossible to salvage.
The only context in which Episode VIII could be better than IX is if you view them as individual movies and not a part of a trilogy. And you know, Episode VIII probably could’ve been an okay standalone film. But it wasn’t. It had to respect what episode VII set up and it had to give episode IX something to follow up on. It didn’t neither and for that both Episode VII and IX are worse off simply because episode VIII exists. In fact the movie almost killed the entire franchise by taking all the characters and storylines and driving them off straight off the cliff.
You’re right with all your bullet points. Episode VIII has a fundamentally broken plot in many ways. The thing that it has going for it though is that it has a few actual themes that I found interesting. I like that Johnson questioned the whole light side dark side polarity and that Rey came from nobody in particular. I liked the rejection of the Skywalker family and assertion that heroes could come from anywhere. If it had followed a better movie, “let the past die” would have been a legitimate highlight for me. It didn’t work in the trilogy it’s a part of, but if the trilogy had been based around the VIII we got I think it could have worked as a sequel trilogy to Star Wars.
And the thing is that I think those are about the only things I particularly like in the entire sequel trilogy besides Babu Frik (I hate how much I love that little dude), and that makes episode VIII the best of a trilogy of bland to bad movies for me. Episode VII was the best constructed of them, and it had cool stuff, but it didn’t do anything that made me think “oh that’s interesting” (like VIII did) because so much of it was nostalgia based 'memberberries. You’re right about it being made to address fan concerns, but that was only relevant in 2015, and I’m looking back at in 2026. Episode IX was just a train wreck start to finish, and I don’t particularly blame it because it had the unenviable task of following up VIII, but it’s still just bad with nothing interesting to show for it.
I have to say I’m getting of directors both-sidesing every story. It was one of the reasons I didn’t like episode VIII. Star Wars was better when it was good guys vs bad guys.
7 put Luke on an island during a war, 8 was just doing the best it could with Abrams’ nonsense mystery boxes
Really? Episode 7 forced episode 8 into such a narrative corner the best they could do was turn Luke into a green titty milk loving weirdo?
You say that like cow milk doesn’t come from a titty. Like you’ve been alienated from the source of your food. Luke isn’t alienated from nature, he’s connected to all the nature around him. He knows exactly where all his food comes from. He uses the force and his knowledge to survive.
Connecting with nature is an important part of spiritual enlightenment. The old Jedi lived up in a tower above a city. They were alienated from nature. Luke is practicing the way of the light side of the force every day. Remember, it’s an energy field that binds all life together.
You’re just like Rey: alienated from the land, afraid of titties. And that is not the way of the new Jedi. Luke may be disillusioned with the Jedi as heroes and peacekeepers, but he’s perfected his monk game in a way most Jedi never did.
First of all I grew up among cows, chickens and other farm animals. I’ve drank warm milk straight from a cows teat. I’ve collected chickens eggs from the nests. I’ve spend morning foraging mushrooms from the forest to make a mushroom stew. Unless you live in a land largely untainted by urbanism I’m probably far more connected to the land than you are.
And your little nature spiel is irrelevant to the movie because the movie doesn’t need to show cleaning out shit from a chicken coop to show how connected a character is with nature. The same way the movie didn’t need to show Luke drinking green titty milk to show he’s connected to nature. There was a million different ways to show that, just look at how Episode 5 introduced Yoda. Drinking milk was a deliberate decision to make him look weird because while I’m well aware where milk comes from other people aren’t and they’re going to think it’s weird.
And the milk thing is just a meme that everyone knows, there’s more wrong with the character. Such a throwing away his own lightsaber. Which would make sense if he considers lightsabers irrelevant to the new teachings of the Jedi, except he still uses that very lightsaber when going against Kylo. And perhaps the most damning fact about how the character was butchered came from Mark Hamill who’s been very public about disagreeing with how the character was written for episode 8.
And finally, nothing you said indicates the root problem with the character was that Episode 7 stuck Luke on an island.
Which would make sense if he considers lightsabers irrelevant to the new teachings of the Jedi, except he still uses that very lightsaber when going against Kylo
Nah, he views lightsabers as irrelevant, and he doesn’t use a lightsaber against Kylo. He uses an illusion of a lightsaber, and he doesn’t even attack with it. He just dodges and distracts. The lightsaber is nothing more than a symbol to distract Kylo. It’s serving the same function as a set of jangling keys.
And he had to have that pacifistic viewpoint, that anti-lightsaber viewpoint, because Abrams put him on an island during a war. The best answer RJ could come up with to that is that he’s become a pacifist.
100% this it was Rian Johnson’s inability to work from someone else’s starting point.
To add to your list. Finn. Johnson butchered Finn’s story so much that the actor vocally said he would never take another Star Wars job.
He was supposed to be a Luke analog. He was supposed to be force sensitive. He was supposed to confront Phasma. The first movie projected so many hints at the path many of these characters were going to take in the trilogy. There was a parallel to Finn and Rey. Finn’s force awakening literally breaks his mind control and we see Kylo sense him!
Johnson came in and burned all of those threads.
I accepted a lot about Episode VIII, but the ruin of the Finn stuff is where it actually became unforgivable for me.
I put Finn (and Phasma) together with all the other threads Episode VII set up and Johnson wrote off. There were simply too many to mention each thread individually.
But yeah, it was a travesty what Johnson did to Finns story. Considering how shafted he got it would’ve been a mercy kill if Finn had sacrificed himself in Episode VIII but even then Johnson needed to subvert expectations and continue ruining characters.
The ending sets up literally nothing for episode IX
wouldn’t you say the same for A New Hope?
I would, but A New Hope gets the excuse of actually being a standalone movie. A New Hope came into theaters as “Star Wars” and became Episode 4 later. Like I said, The last Jedi probably would’ve been an okay standalone movie. The problem is that The Last Jedi was never supposed to be a standalone movie.
I’ll accept that. In general, though, I feel like having the time jumps pull a lot of weight is core to the Star Wars movies’ identity, so if there’s any movie that should leave few threads loose at the end, it would be Star Wars. (Thus, I also feel there was no reason for IX to have been what it was.) I would also argue Kylo Ren being now in control of the New Order in the state of mind that he is (plus his arc with Rey) is a very loose thread with very promising potential. (Plus the ending shot seemed like foreshadowing the fate of the trilogy’s end would be decided by entirely new possibilities.)
You can have time jumps between movies but if the movie is a part of a trilogy it needs to serve the trilogy. Imagine if at the end of two towers Frodo throws the ring into the fire. What would return of the king be about? You couldn’t have the return of the king because the story is resolved, the ring is gone. It would have to be a completely new u story and it wouldn’t make any sense in the context of the trilogy.
That’s basically what Johnson did. He took the whole story and instead of setting up the final movie to resolve the story he resolved the story on his own and left nothing for the last movie.
All the New Order lost was the equivalent of two aircraft carriers. (Using the ancient art of calculus, 1+ \int_{TR-8R}^{some other named squadron} fighter dust = 2.) The story absolutely was not resolved. Ren in control of the Order while going insane, whatever’s up with Finn and Rose surviving, how exactly was the rebellion going to continue (they clearly were but what do they do now?), and final scene may as well had marked with big giant circles who shall be the next heroes.
Except that it ignored everything set up in the previous movie, thus causing the next movie to be an absolute mess.
The force awakens basically had that same problem though, effectively undoing everything concluded in return of the Jedi. Granted there’s a time gap but there’s no explanation as to why the former rebels (whatever they were called at that time I forgot) were still such a small force compared to the new big bad (something order?), not to mention why this order exists in the first place, what their motivations were, how they got their numbers and resources, etc. They’re just a galaxy-level threat sprung from thin air. It seems pretty clear to me that JJ just wanted to remake a new hope with as little consideration of the conclusion of return of the Jedi as he could get away with, plot holes be damned. RJ tried to address some of these plot holes but even he doesn’t really attempt to justify the something-order’s existence. If the force awakens was the first star wars movie as a new hope was then it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but coming just a few decades after the return of the Jedi, there ought to be some explanation for how they lost so much progress in that time, preferably in the first act. But nah, it’s just “somehow the empire returned (with cool new branding)” because JJ can’t write a plot to save his life.
This is why I really don’t care for the new through. Episode VII is a funny movie in isolation but as a follow-up to VI it makes zero sense. Says a lot about audiences that they just blindly accept its premise with no questions asked. The rebels are magically the underdogs again guys, nothing that happened in original trilogy matters!
Yeah, there was so much material they could have pulled from the Expanded Universe. The New Republic era, reclaiming territory from the imperial remnants and rebuilding the Jedi Order; the New Jedi Order era, fighting off the Yuuzhan Vong and the Killiks; the Fate of the Jedi era, when the Sith make a comeback; and then there’s the Legacy era after that.
That’s at least 3 or 4 trilogies right there.
Not to mention going back in time to the Old Republic era with its wars against the Sith empires, and the Dawn of the Jedi in the Origins era prior to that.
If they really wanted to milk the franchise, they had plenty of material to work with instead of just saying “nah” and declaring it all non-canonical, only to replace it with slop…
there’s no explanation as to why the former rebels (whatever they were called at that time I forgot) were still such a small force compared to the new big bad
They weren’t. A good portion of them became the New Republic, which was destroyed by Starkiller Base.
not to mention why this order exists in the first place, what their motivations were, how they got their numbers and resources, etc.
They were what remained of the Empire plus new recruits/conscripts taken in the period after the Battle of Endor.
Gotta be honest, though, “the Empire was building a Death Star that can destroy planets in other solar systems and nobody ever talked about it despite the two small ones being big fucking deals” is a really damn weak premise. They could’ve found some other way of making the remnant of the Empire a threat but then they couldn’t have recycled A New Hope as easily.
I mean, the notion that destroying a planet was somehow a massive outlandish threat in a universe where basically everyone has the technology to propel thousands of tons of mass at many times the speed of light always felt pretty fucking stupid in the first place. Every single hyper-drive capable ship in the universe could turn an entire planet to dust in seconds.
Before the 8th movie, it was pretty heavily implied that things in hyperspace didn’t really interact with things in real space. Hence the reason jumping into hyperspace was a way to escape from a fight you weren’t going to win.
Of course, 8th movie showed us that wasn’t the case, and not only can ships in hyperspace ram things in real space, but the results are devastating. Which actually makes the whole Deathstar thing incredibly stupid and not just obsolete, as a Deathstar is nothing but a big ass target for someone to ram a ship into while in hyperspace.
Every single hyper-drive capable ship in the universe could turn an entire planet to dust in seconds.
a planet has far more mass than what you saw in VIII, if that’s what you’re referring to
Yeah if anything the New Order showed a much more realistic outcome of assassinating an Empire’s Emperor.
If an assassination meant the end of an Empire, Rome would not have existed very long
It wasn’t just an assassination though. They defeated their two most powerful leaders; both of their Sith lords, at that. They destroyed their main battlestation and a large chunk of their military leadership along with it, decapitating the rest of their forces.
And it doesn’t end after the battle of Endor. The Empire is defeated, yes. So they celebrate. They begin reconstructing the New Republic and the New Jedi Order. But there’s still an imperial remnant, and wayward warlords throughout the galaxy. So a large chunk of the story following the Original Trilogy is them hunting down and pacifying those imperial remnants.
There could have easily been a trilogy made just from the material that already existed. They didn’t have to try to rewrite the whole thing, and do an ass job of it at that…
Nah, don’t put the blame on ep. IX mess into VIII. It also ignored everything set up on the previous movie, and even if it didn’t, there wouldn’t be any need for it to suck that much.
Now, none of that makes VIII good…
Nothing was “set up” in VII. It was the usual, hollow “mystery box” Abrams always uses. Given what was basically a blank slate, Rian did what he wanted with it, something new, which is something the franchise desperately needed. Exactly what fans say they want, but always shit on even while everyone moans about there not being anything but reboots and rehashes.
Abram’s style works much better in VII than it does in something like Lost or later Fringe. Abram’s is on record saying he is a Star Wars fan. He made a love letter to Star Wars. Whatever flaws it has it still sets tone and implies things about characters. Finn is force sensitive. Kylo can be saved. The main rivals were going to be Kylo and Finn with Rey being something of an Aakin between them. Father, brother, sister style. Snoke was where it was leading. With all three, Kylo, Rey, and Finn finding their own connections in the force.
Was it a lot of rehash? yes, but that only means that it was a parallel to the first movie. It set a familiar tone to take us somewhere new and complex. VIII takes a left turn on all of it and decides to do camp and expectation subversion and ruin any hope of telling a compelling and well-written story.
First, you’re falling for the trap of the mystery box. None of that is in or really even suggested by the movie itself - you’re putting your own interpretation and expectations in to fill in the absence of any given by the door. It’s exactly why Abrams uses it, and why it never pays off.
Second, being a fan of something doesn’t make a director better. If anything, their previous connection is baggage that will need to be managed and avoided to move a forward. In the case of VII, it worked. It was a safe, comforting return to a long running franchise that could lead to something new. IX shows how that usually ends, though - clinging to the old patterns with little to no deviation, culminating in a disappointing outcome. If nothing else, the attempt of VIII to break off into something different is commendable. Personally I think the film is good and its successes get lost in the nitpicking and hysteria of diehard fans that won’t ever be satisfied anyhow.
Agree to disagree. I don’t begrudge VIII as a movie on it’s own. In the theater I had an okay time and unlike the toxic fans I at least grew to appreciate things like Rose, but you can’t consider VIII in a vacuum because it was never meant to be consumed that way. It’s the center piece in a trilogy.
I would argue that the fact that these interpretations can be rendered from the movie alone, means that we aren’t dealing with a true Abrams style mystery box, and that even if we were, the general speculation about them doesn’t leave us scratching our heads wondering about a narrative direction for these characters.
It’s not a polar bear on a tropical island. In the context of the Star Wars universe most of Abram’s choices have implications.
Those Implications where ignored by Johnson. It’s misguided to blame Abrams for trying to leave questions that mirror the original film. If VIII had built on any of it, at all, we likely wouldn’t be having this discussion. We would be talking about how VIII took the threads of familiar from the previous movie and actually made it good.
It’s not on Abrams for Johnson’s narrative left turn. At release The Force Awakens was incredibly well received. It wasn’t until after VIII dropped that people really started to tear into Abrams for not keeping narrative control, and deflecting the blame from Johnson onto Abrams.
I find that outrageous.
Any collaborative story teller worth their salt can draw the through lines for some of these characters and tropes. It’s not on Abrams for choosing to leave the story about space wizards open ended on what is the opening note of a familiar trilogy. The worst thing you could say about the Force Awakens is that it plays too safe. Which, for an opening movie isn’t a problem unless the rest of the trilogy sucks.
I don’t think it would have been perfect if Abrams held the wheel for all three films. It’s the nature of fandom to nitpick and complain, but it at least would have been consistent. This trilogy is a narrative mess and it got that way because of Johnson having no skill as a collaborative story teller and likely little love for Star Wars.
Johnson did to Star Wars what Abrams did to Star Trek.
I would argue that the fact that these interpretations can be rendered from the movie alone
It’s not, though. That’s my point. Barring Finn being force sensitive, nothing you mention is obvious or supported by anything except your own expectations.
If VIII had built on any of it, at all, we likely wouldn’t be having this discussion. We would be talking about how VIII took the threads of familiar from the previous movie and actually made it good.
Or if Abrams had the courage to follow through, we would have something that wraps up VII and VIII in something that wasn’t such a cluster fuck. Or maybe it would have all been even worse either way. We won’t ever know. Speculating “If it was better, I would have liked it” isn’t proof of anything.
Any collaborative story teller worth their salt can draw the through lines for some of these characters and tropes. It’s not on Abrams for choosing to leave the story about space wizards open ended on what is the opening note of a familiar trilogy.
We can’t blame Rian for “ignoring” plot hooks that weren’t there. What vague questions were asked, he expanded on. For everything else, people were left to create their own expectations like yours that didn’t line up with what he chose to do. There is no outcome that would have left any number of people satisfied that wasn’t even more of a retread.
This trilogy is a narrative mess and it got that way because of Johnson having no skill as a collaborative story teller and likely little love for Star Wars.
What an incredibly self-centered statement. To question and even deny someone’s care for something just because it’s not the way you want them to is just callous and cruel. Nobody is obligated to care the same way you do, and Rian obviously cares for the franchise and has said as much, even saying he’d come back for more despite the extreme reaction he’s gotten so far. Nobody puts up with shit like that for something they don’t care about deeply and that should be welcomed and encouraged. Accusations like yours won’t keep a fandom or franchise healthy - it just pushes everyone reasonable away and leaves the bitter, angry leftovers that nobody wants to touch.
IDK. VII was disappointing, but I hated VIII so much I still haven’t watched IX. But maybe picking a winner out of these is besides the point. Rogue One showed what a good, modern Star Wars film could look like, and in comparison with that, both VII and VIII are just terrible.
A few missteps is quite the understatement. I’d take boring rehash over universe-breaking any day. But it doesn’t matter in the end. It’s like comparing different flavors of shit.
they already broke the universe before the seventh movie by declaring that nothing mattered. eight felt like a fan reaction to that by trying to bring stuff back.
“Universe breaking”, lol.
Honestly if you told me that Alex Kurtzman was a psyop by Rick Berman to make us hate him less I would have to believe it.
What is it with Ricks?
goongas
Hey, someone got the reference!
“Every singe image is so dense, it has so much going on!”
i can’t not hear it.
They made a government to get away from governments. Not the brightest in the bunch.
Ohh, this comment section is gonna be good. 🍿
Aren’t you going to argue firefly is better than then both?
I tried watching a bit of that, but I didn’t really like it. (This screenname predates that show.)
JJ Abrams is a talentless hack that couldn’t direct water out of a boot if the script was on the heel.
He’s great technically, but his problem is he has nothing to say–he’s not an artist.
And that’s exactly why studio execs love him so much.
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The first season of TNG has some great episodes. It’s just that several episodes are very much worth skipping.
some of the later ones were wierdly crusher centric, sex ghost, Her own "personal universe.
Well obviously you start with TOS …
Dammit we do timeline order and you know what that means
It’s been a long road…
If you’re doing that, Discovery S2 to S3 will be the longest road ever.
getting from here to there
I’m starting with the lizards
Double dumb-ass on you for skipping the real timeline beginning
https://startreklist.blogspot.com/2011/04/list-of-all-star-trek-episodes-sorted_05.html
You watch it in this order. Movies included.
I was going to complain about that list being incomplete, but it was saved by a comment:
Doing DS9 within TNG and VOY might be fun. Or so confusing
I actually did this whole watch. It does make sense.
There’s nothing particularly confusing about it, there is storyline overlap between TNG, DS9, and Voyager. They aired that way and used each other’s stories as a way to market the other shows.
For sure. If you watched it live you would watch it that way. Sounds like fun
Does season 1 of TOS have so many more duds?
It’s easy to forget how different TNG was when it came out in 87 and the Cosby Show and Cheers ruled the airwaves. Season has its dogs looking back at it almost 40 years later, but at the time, it was the right break from TOS and something really new on TV.
I missed much of it when it was originally out, but found this guide very useful for going back.
Brad Shoemaker recommended that I include The Offspring, which he says “moved him to tears.”
😭
That episode hit so hard.
TNG had some random heavy hitters when you least expected them. Lwaxana Troi episodes were supposed to be comic relief, which makes it especially cruel that two of the saddest episodes in the series were Lwaxana episodes.
Excellent episode.
I’ve probably seen it hundreds of times in the last 35+ years, and it still makes me cry every single time.
Can you back that claim up with some episode names?
Remember the crossover star trek episode when the Farengi hunted R2D2-type droids?
Rom looking like he’s about to tuck in right there.
Or when the race that Leia dressed up as in RotJ joined the Dominion?
Hot take: I loved the JJ Abrams Star Treks
Into Darkness had a chance to do something fun and different with Khan. It choose to play ‘member berries’ when it didn’t really make sense. If it was a ‘what-if’ universe I would have enjoyed a Khan-Kirk team up but they chose to make him so one-dimensional.
but I did like the 1st one and the 3rd one.
Pretty much my only real exposure to Star Trek prior to the movies was watching Voyager episodes at night not in order.
I really enjoyed the Abrams movies as a neutral fan. To me they were just actions movies in space around an IP I wasn’t invested in.
I’m sorry you had to watch Voyager, I binged all of DS9 and loved it… Moved onto Voyager expecting something of anywhere near the same quality. Gave up after the first season, and now I have a burning hatred of Janeway, a woman who either loves the Prime Directive and thinks it’s the best thing ever made, or despises it and feels it should be ignored whenever, depending on which reaction to the Prime Directive will keep her ship from leaving the Delta Quadrant, and Chakotay…
After seeing how authentically black Sisko was, I was ready for Chakotay’s native american background to be well… Not a blatant collection of tired stereotypes, knowing they hired a fucking Klansman to help keep Chakotay “Authentic” was not a surprise, they really fucked up with him.
Which is exactly what ruined those treks for Trekkies. It was literally just a western in space. Pew pew action, and not much more.
I always preferred the quiet, thought-provoking part of trek. Dialogues, moral Dilemma, ethical choices. And, obviously, the lack of sexism, racism, specicism and money. An occasional pewpew was fine, but never the focus nor the story.
I didn’t love them, but they were fun.
I mean, it’s Star Trek we’re talking about. When it’s good, it’s very good, and when it’s not it’s unbearable. You can find a lot worse than these movies in the franchise.
You could do a lot worse for a movie night. I liked the first one well enough
Ok I have another comment under this post where I shit on JJ’s star wars, but I also actually didn’t mind his star trek. I’ll rewatch them every once in awhile.
Why couldn’t Picard train his replicator to give him the right kind of tea when he just said “tea”, instead of having to say “Tea, Earl Grey, hot” every time? It obviously knew already what “hot” means.
Also, I happen to know that Riker peed a little every time Picard said “Fire at will”.
the replicator should said “do it yourself”
The “hot” part was not in in the script. Patrick Steward added it because the tea on set was notoriously cold.
Fire at will
You know when you see or hear something, and you can never go back to not having seen or heard it?
Add another to the list.
![Star Wars vs Star Trek: a guide [Tommy Siegel]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/d045faea-f6cd-41c9-852e-1e17eea16968.png){kind=link}