Star Wars ep IX: The Rise Of Skywalker

[greenman]

Tbh I have a hard time seeing films like Back to the Future, Groundhog Day and Ghostbusters as much beyond essentially formulaic big budget studio product with some good ideas and solid work that puts them a cut above the rest, but with a palpably strict upper limit on the kind of formal or tonal weirdness that can make a film truly special and not just agreeable. If these are the kinds of films that prove the system works best, then I don't know what else to say. Give me a glorious, aching mess like Paul Schrader's Cat People over these films any day of the week

I'm not sure "formulaic" really covers the divide though, you could I think argue a lot of art cinema does adhere to certain formulas as well but that the intension is rather different. I think you could argue the desire to entertain is perhaps less individualistic rather than the desire to get across intense drama or more complex ideas? hence entertainment films can benefit more from a wider creative imput rather than a dictatorial method?

[Kermit the Frog]

I guess so, but I am sort of inclined to pull a Žižek and reject the premise of the question outright because I don't see intense drama and complex ideas as particularly less 'entertaining' in the broad sense, and I don't really perceive the art/entertainment film divide as anything other than inherited industry terminology. When it comes to gauging the taste of the masses I think there's a lot of coercion implicit in the terminology used, that essentially aids and abets a narrowing of cultural horizons. If you're someone who lives in England, to find uptown Manhattan or a rural American small town a relatable and comforting recurring setting in a film is faintly absurd, an effect of what is essentially a colonisation of the collective imaginary. The kinds of settings we encounter in films that are designed to be widely appealing are actually highly specific, but take on a performative universality through some process of osmosis, the long term ingestion of the particular kinds of visual media made available to us. I think a similar thing occurs with storytelling and how we perceive it.

[willbo]

maybe another interesting case study is the career of Roland Emmerich who hit big with Independence Day, flopped with Godzilla then struggled to get back on top.

And I've just remembered one thoughtful, quirky blockbuster flop I really liked, Tommorowland with George Clooney, inspired by the Disneyworld area and with a nice peace and love message.

[mothman]

Tomorrowland seems to have been a Brad Bird dream project, one that his cachet after assorted Pixars and a Mission Impossible enabled him to make. It's no coincidence he then had to finally make another Incredibles after it flopped. Though it may not have been the film per se, I think they certainly didn't know how to market it and in a lot of people's minds it was another Jupiter Ascending...

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

Tomorrowland is terribly built. They added the first scene, because, without it, the audience wouldn't have seen George Clooney until the 40 min mark. Then, you have random stuff, and ultimately Hugh Laurie delivers the bunch of the exposition just before the last big action sequence.

Tomorrowland and John Carter were projects more or less imposed on The Walt Disney Studios by John Lasseter, who had then the upper hand with Pixar and wanted his pals to do the live action projects they had in mind for another branch of the same company. The WDS management agreed half-heartedly and had no idea about how to market them. Both Andrew Stanton and Brad Bird then delivered a sequel to their most popular Pixar film, which covered the losses from their pet project.

It's typical "One for them, one for me" behaviour. Remember Clint Eastwood, who had a huge flop in the early eighties with Honky Tonk Man. He quickly followed up with Sudden Impact, a thriller which was quickly rewritten to turn into a Dirty Harry sequel. When a few years later he was interested in making a Charlie Parker biopic, which could be another flop, he made The Dead Pool, the crappy fifth entry to the Dirty Harry franchise, first. As a rule of thumb, basically all the movies that were "directed" by Buddy Van Horn (and once by Robert Lorenz) are just stuff that Eastwood accepts to get his more personal projects green lit.

Dune was actually a "One for them" movie. Lynch turned down Return of the Jedi, but agreed to work with Dino DeLaurentiis in exchange for DeLaurentiis producing Blue Velvet.

[mjwilson]

I know what you mean. Arthouse films live or die by the originality of the ideas, not at all by commercial considerations. Still, I imagine the producer of an arthouse film still has an important role. She has to be the voice of compromise at times when the auteur gets too single-minded. Take David Lynch on the set of Twin Peaks season 3 as an example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvy7pkXOU-Q

"Why have we only got two days?"
"Err, because you signed a deal to make 8 episodes and then pressured them into letting you make 18 but in the same timeframe."

[willbo]

It's interesting how a lot of directors do popular-aimed films to alternate with "weird personal vision" films. Then you get the ones who's vision ends up being awesome and grabbing the public, like Del Toro and Nolan.

[Chedney Honks]

I guess so, but I am sort of inclined to pull a Žižek and reject the premise of the question outright because I don't see intense drama and complex ideas as particularly less 'entertaining' in the broad sense, and I don't really perceive the art/entertainment film divide as anything other than inherited industry terminology. When it comes to gauging the taste of the masses I think there's a lot of coercion implicit in the terminology used, that essentially aids and abets a narrowing of cultural horizons. If you're someone who lives in England, to find uptown Manhattan or a rural American small town a relatable and comforting recurring setting in a film is faintly absurd, an effect of what is essentially a colonisation of the collective imaginary. The kinds of settings we encounter in films that are designed to be widely appealing are actually highly specific, but take on a performative universality through some process of osmosis, the long term ingestion of the particular kinds of visual media made available to us. I think a similar thing occurs with storytelling and how we perceive it.

Very well expressed idea. I totally agree.

[famethrowa]

Took ma wee bairn to the movie theatre last week to see Empire Strikes Back. Every minute of that film has been rinsed and memed to death, but it's still a rattling good show and I think it's important that an 8 year old lad should see it on the big loud screen, not just youtube reacts or whatever. Return of Jedi is on tomorrow, I'm not looking forward to the absence of Yub Nub, but I'll probably get a bit teary anyway.

[willbo]

if you count Special Editions, ROTJ is the only film of the 9 episodes I haven't seen at the cinema on release week (or at all)

[greenman]

It's interesting how a lot of directors do popular-aimed films to alternate with "weird personal vision" films. Then you get the ones who's vision ends up being awesome and grabbing the public, like Del Toro and Nolan.

Nolan I wouldnt say he really shifts in style that much, perhaps Dunkirk a bit in dropping the high concept plotting/setting but he's really been making blockbuster thrillers all along. Del Toro is quite unique in being able to shift between heartfelt fantasy drama/horror and entertainment blockbusters whilst doing both pretty well, without knowledge of it I wouldnt believe than Pan's and Pacific Rim were the work of the same man.

[famethrowa]

if you count Special Editions, ROTJ is the only film of the 9 episodes I haven't seen at the cinema on release week (or at all)

Wish I was seeing Sebastian Shaw at the end, his fade in warmed my young heart back in 1983. Now I gotta see whatsisname pasted in instead.

[greenman]

Wish I was seeing Sebastian Shaw at the end, his fade in warmed my young heart back in 1983. Now I gotta see whatsisname pasted in instead.

The single biggets problem with the Lucas changes for me, you can skip past things like that aweful song at the start of Jedi or Jabba in A New Hope but thats the emotional cap of the trilogy.

[willbo]

Wish I was seeing Sebastian Shaw at the end, his fade in warmed my young heart back in 1983. Now I gotta see whatsisname pasted in instead.

Shaw was in the late 90s ROTJ special edition. It was only the blu-ray/dvd that new guy was added in. So it depends which version the cinema is showing. I'd imagine it could be the late 90s version, as that was made for cinemas, and the other was made for home media. But I'm not sure.

[greenman]

Shaw was in the late 90s ROTJ special edition. It was only the blu-ray/dvd that new guy was added in. So it depends which version the cinema is showing. I'd imagine it could be the late 90s version, as that was made for cinemas, and the other was made for home media. But I'm not sure.

My guess would be they'll be the most recent versions, cinemas basically use the same digital masters as disks and streaming these days but with much less compression.

Unless its some small cinema that managed to pick up an old film print from the 97 release but I can't imagine Disney allowing that.

[St_Eddie]

if you count Special Editions, ROTJ is the only film of the 9 episodes I haven't seen at the cinema on release week (or at all)

I watched the Star Wars Special Edition at the cinema as a kid and the next day the school bully mockingly asked "did you enjoy watching Star Wars, Ed?", just to let me know that he saw me watching the movie.  Motherfucker, you were watching it too.  Cunt.

[St_Eddie]

Wish I was seeing Sebastian Shaw at the end, his fade in warmed my young heart back in 1983. Now I gotta see whatsisname pasted in instead.

It's an awful retcon, to be sure.  As is Jar Jar shouting "weesa free!" at then end of the Special Edition cut of Return of the Jedi and it is Jar Jar because the other gungans had different voices.  Lucas literally retroactively inserted Jar Jar Binks into the original trilogy.  The man's a spiteful maniac.  Pan pipes and all.

[willbo]

I watched the Star Wars Special Edition at the cinema as a kid and the next day the school bully mockingly asked "did you enjoy watching Star Wars, Ed?", just to let me know that he saw me watching the movie.  Motherfucker, you were watching it too.  Cunt.

yeah but he was forced to go by his parents, and he's not a nerd who knows the names and back-stories of all the aliens etc. You were there by your own choice you sad bastard

he probably sneaked in for free while hanging round doing smoking and cool stuff

[famethrowa]

Trip report: saw ROTJ today in the cinema, my boy dressed up in full Vader outfit and red lightsaber despite it being 30 degrees outside. And yes, Hayden C right there at the end, getting in the way and flubbing the emotional climax, nice one George. No sign of Jar Jar though, so a point for the good guys. Good to see the show with all the big rumbles and booms, though Jabba's barge exploding was way louder than Death Star 2 going boom?

Also, I know of Paul Brooke, and I knew of the Rancor Keeper, but I didn't know Paul Brooke was the Rancor Keeper! Good stuff. No wonder Ebert singled him out for praise.

[Dex Sawash]

What other individual film threads have got 100 pages? Batman v Superman?

[Dex Sawash]

The answer; none.



Threads sorted by # of replies

[idunnosomename]

It's an awful retcon, to be sure.  As is Jar Jar shouting "weesa free!" at then end of the Special Edition cut of Return of the Jedi and it is Jar Jar because the other gungans had different voices.  Lucas literally retroactively inserted Jar Jar Binks into the original trilogy.  The man's a spiteful maniac.  Pan pipes and all.

it's interesting watching this again and see that the city shots are all very janky. they're mostly just layered mattes with pretty bad comping of the figures in and CG ships over the top. the Bespin one particularly looks awful
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlCFPo6YYbU

Naboo was added for the 2004 DVD and it's just this model shot from TPM with a crowd comped in over the trade federation tanks, CGI Gungans on the foreground cupola and, rather unforgivably, mirrored (considering Theed was an actual model with a distinct geography)

[Retinend]

Nolan I wouldnt say he really shifts in style that much, perhaps Dunkirk a bit in dropping the high concept plotting/setting but he's really been making blockbuster thrillers all along. Del Toro is quite unique in being able to shift between heartfelt fantasy drama/horror and entertainment blockbusters whilst doing both pretty well, without knowledge of it I wouldnt believe than Pan's and Pacific Rim were the work of the same man.

Pacific Rim is a better film than Pan's Labyrinth imo. I say that not so much because Pan's Labyrinth is overrated[nb]I've been a fan of Pan's  Labyrinth before, so I know why people like it, but at the end of the day it's all a bit of a muddle, I don't love it[/nb] but because Pacific Rim is underrated.

My partner and I had paid for and watched a different film in the cinema... we noticed a queue for a new film starting in the lobby as we were leaving. We snuck in. Free film! Well in 2021 I can't remember the name of the film we had intended to see but I remember PACIFIC RIM like it was yesterday.

[mothman]

What other individual film threads have got 100 pages? Batman v Superman?

The answer; none.



Threads sorted by # of replies

It's the longest-running thread I ever started, by a country parsec.

[kalowski]

"You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them. bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness."
"My bad!"

[popcorn]

I've been living off the royalties from the film cliches thread for years.

[St_Eddie]

...though Jabba's barge exploding was way louder than Death Star 2 going boom?

Jabba was a gas bag.  Highly explosive.

[madhair60]

To be fair to George Lucas, the additions to ROTJ are simply adding more stupidity to a quite stupid film.

[idunnosomename]

I'm glad the Rebels brought some celebratory fireworks for their fighters to use over Endor. that really looks like the sort of plausible thing you do in a big galactic space war where you've just blown up a space station with presumably, thousands of people on it

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

All those innocent contractors.