The Syndicate

Nope. I'll wait until the third or fourth week usually if I go see a movie. I don't like a packed theater because I have a sweet spot that I like to sit in. I don't like getting to the theater any more than 20 minutes before showtime. Does that make me a movie snob?

The movie still looks pretty good to me but I thought the trailer was mostly meh. The poster they released recently has me concerned about one thing.

Spoiler: show

Sorsha wrote:
Golden wrote:I have my tickets for the midnight screening. Anyone else going all in on the first day?
Are you going in costume?

You aren't a true fan until you go in costume.

:P

Back in 2003 I went to a Lord of the Rings trilogy presentation on opening night of Return of the King. Still probably the greatest theater-going experience of my life. My best friend and I got there three hours early so we could nab good seats. We sat in the lobby for an hour and a half before they opened the theater. As we sat there I asked him if showing up three hours early for a fantasy trilogy that would keep us there for over 12 hours made us major dorks. Another attendee walked past us dressed up like Samwise Gamgee (complete with replica elvish cloak, backpack, and frying pan). My friend turns to me and says, "Oh, we're major dorks alright but at least we're not that guy."

Anywho, I have an old Boba Fett t-shirt I plan on wearing when the wife and I go to see it. I have a Max Rebo band concert shirt that I'm trying to talk her into wearing as well.

Despite all the good reviews and amazing box office returns, I'm still going to wait until January to see this. I just don't like crowded theaters.

Spoiler: show

Finally saw it tonight! Without digesting it completely, I give it a 7 out of 10. That's higher than all three of the prequels, which is what I was hoping for. Good visuals but there seemed to be focus issues- lots and lots of blur unless the camera was perfectly still. Maybe that's more an issue with the theater than the actual film. Dunno.

I like the new characters. Poe seems like a Han Solo-esque hot shot, which is cool. Finn was a neat character even though his progression is rushed. Rey was pretty cool despite the few cheesy Instant Force moments. I liked the way they handled Han. It wasn't Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull redux. Older Han was still cool Han and his death (though spoiled for me by internet trolls) was sad but felt right.

I too could have done without all the tongue-in-cheek original trilogy meta references. That held it back even though it was supposed to be a wink and nod. Death Star 3.0 was underwhelming and a bit far-fetched. Seriously, did they really think the third time would be the charm? And how does an offshoot of the Empire's leftovers have enough money to build something like that?

Visually, it was pretty good (aside from all the blurry). A good mix of practical and special effects. The music is really strong too. I'm glad there were mostly new themes instead of rehashing the old stuff. Rey's theme reminds me of the tune from one of the Man with No Name films.

Basically, I got what I wanted- an old-school feel with new blood that can move on to new stories. TFA is a solid starting point for a new generation, if they do new things. There are unanswered questions and lots of new ground to explore. Jedi left us with a 'happliy ever after' vibe, so they've got their work cut out for them to make additional Star Wars films worth seeing. So far so good.

As for JJ Abrams- I've got a theory on him as a director. So far, none of his films have been bad. In act, they've all been pretty good or really good but never great. That streak has not changed yet.

I finally saw Rogue One tonight. I'll put some critical thoughts together tomorrow. For now, here are my two general takeaways:

1) They should have had a character named Kyle Katarn as part of the Rebel squad. I stole the Death Star plans hundreds of times as Kyle Katarn growing up.

2) My name is Galen. It's an uncommon name, so it was very, VERY weird to hear it said so many times in a movie.

I'm going to have to watch The Last Jedi again to really make sense of my rating for it. My wife and I watched TFA again a few days before we went to see TLJ. TFA was very good until they rolled out Starkiller Base. Its tone was less serious than the original trilogy, which bugged me at times but it was probably just an updating of the wink-and-nod throwback humor in the original trilogy (which hearkened back to the serials of the 30s and 40s). The fact that they fell back on the superweapon-that-blows-up-planets plot was disappointing. The new characters were all very good. Han was too meta and Leia's presence felt unnecessary (minus the go find out son line).

Spoilers for The Last Jedi follow...

Spoiler: show

Where The Force Awakens borrowed heavily from Star Wars, I felt The Last Jedi borrowed heavily from Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. How is Empire structured? An early battle, someone (Luke) learning Jedi stuff while other stuff happens to fill the time between Jedi-learning scenes, and a showdown. How is TLJ structured? An early battle, someone (Rey) learning Jedi stuff while other stuff happens to fill the time between Jedi-learning scenes, and two showdowns (Rey v. Ren and Ren v. Luke).

I liked what they did with Luke Skywalker. Maybe they could have toned down the snark but I loved the brooding mopefest. He failed in a big way that mirrors Obi-Wan Kenobi and he hates himself for it. His reluctance to teach Rey makes perfect sense. I'm fine with just about everything from the Luke-Rey side of the film. My problems lie everywhere else.

The space chase side of the film contains all the timeline issues of Empire Strikes Back but amplifies it all by setting a hard number for the timeline (sixteen hours of fuel I believe?). That makes everything happen almost too fast for me to believe. In Empire, Luke seems to learn enough about the Force in a few days (maybe two weeks at the most?) while Vader chases down the Millennium Falcon. Granted, they set Rey up to be surging in Force sensitivity but I find it hard to believe that she learned much to strengthen her skills in the two or three days she was on Ahch-To. She's still raw, so I hope they bring Luke back to teach her more, especially after that Yoda scene. This begs the questions: how synced up are the timelines of Ahch-To and the space chase? Yeah, yeah, faster-than-light travel warping and bending the flow of time, but seriously- how long are the days on Ahch-To?

The side-mission to Canto Bight ended up being a waste of time because it accomplished nothing but setting up a fight scene inside a bisected mega-star destroyer. Even the romance between Finn and Rose failed to flourish like the romance between Han and Leia. Sure the space chase gave us a brief mutiny and a short case study on hotshot heroics and their misogynistic leanings but it felt like time poorly spent in order to fill the void between scenes with Rey.

I also have a hard time believing that the Republic didn't have some kind of army. Maybe I'm wrong, but I understood the Resistance to be a Republic-funded band of guerilla fighters acting inside First Order territory. If the old Rebel Alliance didn't beef up an army to deal with pockets of the Imperial loyalists, then they deserve to be wiped out for employing lousy military strategy. If the Republic chose to eschew a formal military in order to avoid the risk of becoming the Empire all over again, then they were naive. This is why I had so much trouble with no one responding to Leia's transmission. It's not like Starkiller Base is still around. Maybe when people get the memo that Snoke is dead and part of his fleet destroyed, their spirits will perk up and they'll find their fighting spirit again.

Either way, I'm intrigued to see what comes to be in Episode IX. There doesn't seem to be much of the past left for them to lean on and borrow from. The way forward is all wide open.

The Syndicate

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