There are fundamentally two ways to entertain people:

1. Dazzle them with skill.
2. Baffle them with bull****.

Number one entertains everyone. Number two entertains children and morons.

Well, not always: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect#Original_study

I'll take your ****ing life.

you forgot the third way... blind them with science

I just want to ad that the top of Page 3, with Echoman and Antony discussing the finer points of the film was pretty much better than porn, and I felt less guilty about masturbating too it.

Just, throwing that out there.

I doubt that it's anything exclusively. Arguably that's a good thing, since whatever it is was likely developed long ago in a galaxy far, far away. When I mentioned Kung Fu, I was primarily referring to Darth Maul's fighting style, which is admittedly quite a bit different than in the rest of the prequels. Ray Park was a Kung Fu & Wushu practitioner & it really shows in his movement (though you're right, it could just as easily be something like Tae Kwon Do, had I not known his history). Die his robe orange, file down those horns, & remove those tattoos & he's basically a pissed off Shaolin monk. Honestly, watching the fight again & not relying on memory alone has changed my opinion on the quality of choreography quite a bit. The 1990's me was far more impressed with it than the 2016 me. Honestly, I can be a bit absent-minded, & didn't realize that much time had passed since the prequels.

The ballet thing is something I haven't really thought about.

I just assumed, from the OT, that the fight style were more like extensions of the characters. In the same sense how Jedi have to build their own sabers, the saber style was personal. Like how Old Ben's passiveness in his lightsaber use stem from his acceptance of Vader and how he failed. Luke was sure of himself in the ESB fight while Vader remained in control. Luke's wild swinging came from momentarily tapping into his anger at the end of RotJ.

I guess the ballet thing makes sense. You can see in Clones that "lightsaber training" is like a government-funded after-school program, so all the Jedi from childhood are conditioned to fight in the same standardized, bland, pointless way. No wonder the Jedi Order failed, like some sort of "old guard" institution, they couldn't adapt. Was this (and through all the drawn-out, crappy lightsaber fight scenes) really, really Lucas' underlying commentary about the pitfalls of bureaucracy and the dangers of social conditioning???????? Or the Sith fighting style stems from the power of neoliberialism, since the bad guys of the Prequels are supply-side based elites (who control droid, clone production)?????? aaaaaahhh

no

but it is a neat idea

I think that resistance to change by way of adhering to ingrained dogma is a major theme of the series.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Anakin Skywalker most definitely brings balance to the force. His passion and love are the downfall of the Jedi order, and in the wake of that downfall, his son trains to become a Jedi outside of that institution. He develops the same sort of attachment and passion that Vader did, but is able to ultimately control it. Luke fights for his friends, and for his father. His unconditional love for his family, including his monster of a father, is how he prevails.

So when Vader stands there, after just having pissed off his son and getting the ass-beating of a lifetime laid down on him, realizes that his son is able to walk the middle ground. He loves his friends and family, and he will do whatever it takes to save them, save for losing himself to his passion. Luke has control that Anakin never had. He was never taken as a kid and told to not care. He grew up learning to care, and it's his greatest strength.

When Vader tells him it's too late, he's not saying that he can't turn back. He's saying that it wouldn't matter if he did. This is the guy who murdered a bunch of kids and doomed the entire galaxy. He's beyond redemption.

But he stands there, watching the emperor kill his son who has just done what Vader never could, and he realizes that it doesn't matter that he's a monster. That's his boy, dammit, and monster or not, it's the moment of truth.

That same caring and compassion that manifested itself as selfishness years ago - which destroyed the Jedi order and boned the whole galaxy - comes back as selfless. He knows he's about to die if he does what he's thinking of doing, and he does - not - care.

It doesn't matter how the galaxy remembers him. All that matters is this prick killing his kid, and dammit, trying to save his family is how Anakin became Vader to begin with.

So in the end, the Jedi order is gone. The sith are gone. All that's left is Luke, who isn't really either one. Love, passion, knowledge and control. Sounds pretty balanced to me.

Antony, you need your own Star Wars blog. Change that unicorn horn in your avatar into a lightsaber & you're ready to go.​

Oh it's not just Star Wars.

I do this kind of in-depth analysis of every movie. Every movie has themes, man. Whether they're deliberate or not, there's something going on there. You might not be trying to say anything about anything, but the world you live in shapes the world you create in the stories you tell. As a writer, director, whatever... The things you spend your day thinking about will find their way into the work you create. Like it or not, you're going to end up saying something about something. The decisions you make with your characters, the plot turns and so on, are caused by the way you've felt about things in your life.

The one thing that people really do get right when they talk about Star Wars is how it's a shared experience. Now, I honestly don't think this gives them the right to tell Lucas what he could and couldn't do with special editions and so on (even though the SE and BluRay changes are pretty much universally terrible), but the consumer will always have a crucial part to play in the world of any artform. It doesn't matter if it's film, music, literature, interpretive dance, or a goddamn magic show. Without the audience you've got nothing.

And people tend to suggest that, well, if an artist isn't really trying to say a thing, then it doesn't count. You think so, eh?

You know, I've found throughout my life that the kind of truth that comes forward when you aren't trying to make a point can be more powerful than the kind that comes through when you are. You see it so much in the world of politics. This or that politician will say something that they feel is pretty innocuous, and it becomes a big deal. A lot of the time the ones that make the news are some jerk saying something racist or homophobic or whatever, and then of course they deny it. "I'm not a racist! I have lots of respect for black people!" Yeah? Then why did you say that? Just because your conscious opinion on something is one way doesn't mean that a greater truth can't come out when you aren't trying. So when you're pressed for the information that you know is incendiary, you play it safe, but your real feelings can slip through when you're not paying attention. A lot of people seem to not understand that this is why it's a big deal when people say things. You can just backpedal and say you misspoke, but you showed your cards there for a split second, and now the world is all the wiser for it.

I mean, you can see this kind of thing slip through in Michael Bay movies, even. This man's movies are juvenile, idiotic, and frenetic as hell, and people tend to discount them as a result. However, the dude's personality comes through in a big way in his movies. The kinds of characters he touts as heroes, the kinds of characters he labels as weak, the kind of thing he finds funny, etc... The problem with Michael Bay movies isn't that they're generally bad storytelling (which they are). The problem is that Michael Bay is a bad person. You can't identify with his characters because what you're seeing onscreen is what he views as a relatable character, and most people just can't see it that way. Who you are as a person, and the way you feel about the world, is always going to come through in your work. There's no way it can't.

It's really the biggest reason why so many entertainers are liberals. It's just the way it has to be based on their trade. Think about it. In order to be a writer, or an actor, or a director... the key characteristic that makes you good at that job is envisioning things that aren't real. Now, I don't mean aliens and spaceships and **** like that. I'm talking about people. The people you're writing, directing, or pretending to be on stage do not exist for the most part. Even if it is an actual person that you're portraying, it still requires the same skill: empathy. If you can't understand the way other people feel about things, you're probably not going to be a very effective artist in the world of fiction or performance art. You've gotta be able to put yourself in the shoes of another person and really see what it's like to be them. You've got to be able to truly understand the way a person-who-is-not-you feels about a situation, whether that person is real or not. You've gotta understand where other people are coming from, and brother, this is gonna cause you to skew liberal. When giving a **** about how other people feel is your primary job requirement, you tend to end up giving a **** about people in the rest of the world. Weird how that works, isn't it?

But aside from that digression, the point is that all art (even the most commercial) has a degree of interpretation to it. It's a two-way street, and the consumer has just as much a role to play as the artist. It's why Death of the Author is such a prominent theory about critique. It really doesn't matter what the author was trying to say. All that matters is what the audience interprets. You can go on and on and on about how you're misunderstood or you weren't really trying to say this or that, but the thing of it is, if you're trying to get a specific message across and that's not the message that comes through, then you're either not very good at your craft, or you should just admit that your subconscious is coming through in your work and go with it. You can go on and on about how that's not what your movie is about, or that's not what you were saying in your song, but it's out of your hands now. You might not have been trying to say it, but dammit you said it all the same.

I mean, I can go on about this kind of **** at length (which should be obvious at this point), and I can assure you that you're far from the first person to suggest that I should put my cinema analysis out there, but I guess the problem there is one of the artist, not the audience. Who the hell wants to know what I think? It's not like I'm trying to say anything.

...

Okay, now I... We need you to go in-depth with the Doom film adaption from 2005. Without referring to the novelization or original script which puts more things and events into context.

Well, it actually is a somewhat interesting morality play, focusing on the idea of moral relativism.

I can't remember a lot of the character names, so I'm gonna do my best without looking anything up.

The Karl Urban character, who clearly has a troubled past, thinks he's not a great guy. He's just trying to do his best, and he feels like being put in the Marines is where he belongs, because he doesn't have anything good go offer the world.

Well, so far into the film, we learn that the virus of sorts that is causing people go mutate into the demons essentially feeds off of how bad natured you are. We see a really good example of this in the character Goat (whose name I remember because this actually is a legitimately great aspect of an otherwise ****ty film) who is devoutly religious as a result of his past as a murderer. He understands that the things he did were wrong, and he's in the Marines to try to do some good. He's so into the idea of being pious that he carves crosses into his arm to atone for blasphemy. But here's a guy who is mean, scary, and a convicted killer. After he's bitten, he starts to change, and kills himself before he can. He knows his soul is ruined, and it's the only way he can redeem himself. It's the only way he can do right for his wrongs.

So, in the end, you have Karl and the Rock. The Rock is a career Marine, and he believes that this sense of duty carries with it righteousness. The Marines do what they do because it's for the greater good. It doesn't matter if they're told to execute everyone. They follow orders, because they don't get to have an opinion anymore.

Karl refuses, and ends up getting infected. But he doesn't turn bad. Even though he sees himself as a war criminal and a monster, in the end he becomes a force of righteousness. The Rock turns into a demon. His absolute removal from the moral implications of his behavior is a larger sin than Goat having been a murderer. Goat did bad **** and knew it was bad he was bad. He wanted to be good, but he couldn't. Karl did bad **** and regretted it. He was trying to just do the right thing for once, and he never stopped trying in the face of death. The Rock didn't even worry about it. He did what he was told to do. It's right because he does it, you know? He removed himself completely.


There's an idea at work here that being capable of doing good, and doing nothing, is worse than doing the bad yourself. If you can stop it, you have a moral imperative to do so. He didn't, and that's why he's the worst monster of all. He could have said no, but he's already dead inside.

Karl wins. Good wins.

The audience loses.

I wrote that on my phone on lunch at work. Reading it now, there are typos and other weird things that phones sometimes do to text.

I'm just leaving it the way it is. I refuse to edit a critique of Doom.

Now do Wing Commander

one positive thing i will say about doom was the creature effects... they went practical wherever possible and greatly limited the use of CGI for the monsters... and it was quality work too

too bad the damn good creature effects were squandered on such a **** film

http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0419706/quotes?qt=qt0413734

This exchange is incredible, though.

I thought Ren was amazing for the reasons that Antony mentioned. He definitely seems like the most interesting character in blockbuster film in a long time. I'm really interested in seeing how his story progresses.

I also think complaints about the choreography are invalid. No one but Ren had any training with sabers, and Ren had to fight while dealing with a bowcaster injury which they specifically made a point of showing was incredibly powerful. It's entirely possible that his instruction on light-saber combat never progressed very far with Luke or Snoke, and he didn't have anyone to practice against. Finn isn't a force user, but he was a highly trained soldier. He didn't have the elegance of a fencer, but he knew enough to be generically dangerous with a melee weapon. And Rey grew up using that staff to fight with. It makes total sense that the duels were rough and amateurish, and it was very clearly intentional.

Kylo Ren swings his lightsaber like he's using a machete to clear brush.

He has no composure. He's just pissed off lashing out, and the difference is he's usually the biggest badass around.

I'll just start copy/pasting that once every six posts or so from here on out.

Because of this, right?

Thanks for the indulgence, Antony. I don't remember Goat's history being directly mentioned in the film, other than his insinuating that he served time for something, though it was in the novelization, and maybe in the script. But that's minutia or whatever.

On that note, I thought the film was filled with good visuals (When you could see them) and an interesting story concept that fails solely on the fact it does not work as an adaption of any Doom game. The film had more (likely unintentional) references to the games' mythos than anything else. The Rock was ironically wooden (Because stone versus wood, mmkay?). All in all I did like the film, though many who saw it didn't. Thanks again.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie. It has some heavy flaws which I place on Abrams' lack of directing capability to properly tell a story but I didn't find anything bad enough to ruin the enjoyment. I think the best way to describe it, that I've seen, is comparing it to a pilot episode. It has so much that needs to be established while trying to tell its own story that it turns out kinda rough and unbalanced. It has me looking forward to what a director that isn't Abrams can do with it from here on out.

Kylo Ren was alright but nothing impressive. He definitely looks cool (mask on), but the impression I got is that he was only in his position of power because Snoke took appeal to him for being strong with the force, having so much hatred toward his family, and having so much naive ambition to be like Vader. Certainly a trifecta for a warlord puppet to throw in front of the Republic. Even though he can significantly use the force he's too immature to retain much discipline, and that especially goes for his lightsaber fighting. He tries to keep a technique when a fight starts so that he looks menacing and all that, but he quickly gets impatient and just wants to hack and slash. Really, I see him as what Hayden-Anakin should've turned into rather than becoming Vader. Though despite that comparison he was certainly more tolerable than prequels Anakin.

In regard to the choreography, the prequel lightsaber battles were neat and I enjoyed them despite sometimes being overdone - Anakin vs Obi-Wan in particular. I was pretty happy to have duels more like the OT that were simple and fairly short, since I would prefer to wait and become more invested in the characters before they get into a rave to the death.

Please indulge me and elucidate on Abrams' storytelling deficiencies and how they negatively impacted the movie.

For consideration: There is every chance that JJ Abrams is the finest "storyteller" director this side of Spielberg. Spielberg can do both, with regard to the distinction of making films v making movies, which is a worthwhile semantic distinction to draw. Abrams is on the very cusp of being a masterful movie director, and his best films are what we refer to as "pure cinema," e.g. making motion pictures that exist foremost to entertain and have a secondary emphasis on artistic themes and the interpretation thereof.

There's no overall subtext like when Spielberg made Munich as a commentary on the moral dilemma surrounding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and whether the essential revenge being sought makes you worse than those you're pursuing. It's the essential question of whether your principles are worth the cost of your soul.

Spielberg can do that movie. Abrams can't. Spielberg can also do Jurassic Park, and that's a wheelhouse that Abrams has all but surpassed him in. It's light without being shallow, silly without being stupid, and it asks only to turn your brain off not because it's stupid, but because it would rather you just enjoyed the ride than complain that you couldn't clone dinosaurs with bits of frog DNA.

Here's the real kicker: I've been posting in-depth analysis on The Force Awakens for several pages now, and at the end of the day, it's almost all bull****. It's interpretation.

While interpretation in terms of forming an opinion and engaging in discussion should generally be backed up with sound reasoning for said interpretation, it still remains purely subjective.

Going to the movies is a lot like going into the cave on Dagobah.

What's in there?

Only what you take with you.

I just feel he gets distracted easily, he has a lot of good intentions and tries to build up a lot of drama and suspense, but he just can't quite deliver because he loses focus. For example of the destruction of the Republic. That pretty much came out of nowhere. It should've been a huge moment that ripped apart any feeling of comfort and hope for this galaxy, but instead it fell flatter than a pancake. Everyone we cared about we knew was safe (for that moment) and we weren't given any establishment of what was even going on there, so the Republic only mattered as much as knowing Mos Espa exists somewhere out there. Instead screentime was spent on an unnecessary monster chase with Abrams' 50th weird creature, a completely unnecessary character (Moz), and a Trooper twirling a baton for a fight that serves a good example why it was best for the Cairo swordsman to just be shot.

Then there's the battle of Starkiller Base which felt merely tacked on after a lot of goofing around. You could somewhat say the same thing about A New Hope, but since the movie's motivation came from the hunt for the Death Star plans which served to eventually establish that this is something the Rebels had been building up to and were prepared to do it whether they had the plans or not. I've only seen TFA once so pardon if I'm not remembering right, but the Rebels/Resistance were completely unaware of Starkiller Base until the middle of this movie and then somehow had intelligence coming in to prepare for an attack. Then, from there, it was just paint by numbers. "What do we do?" "What did we do last time?" "Storm the surface, disable the shield, take it out from the inside while someone had a heart to heart with the big bad" "Right, we'll do that again. But in a quarter of the time."

So by the time the big battle actually happens it has to be so rushed that you don't really get a feel for the stakes despite the previous destruction of the Republic and the 'chargin mah lazer' countdown because it's all been slapped together with no depth or concern. But we definitely had enough screentime throughout the movie for Han to gush over the bowcaster multiple times, Kylo Ren to have another tempter tantrum so that Stormtroopers could have a chuckle-worthy moment backing away, and Finn and BB-8 arguing long enough to reach "Droid, plz." To me, between this and Abrams' previous history, it feels like he often gets distracted with trying to fit in "oh this would be so cool!" or "oh this would be so cute!" moments that stop the narrative just to give a wink to the audience. Most in particular was Abrams' signature crazy creature feature which felt like he should've been on screen saying "I wanted to see this in the Star Wars movies for so long! Your regularly scheduled program will resume after this random massacre." He needs to get the hang of integrating fan service within the flow the story.

Don't get me wrong though, this might all sound like a rant but none of it was necessarily bad. Just not fully thought out or well executed; there's a lot of potential that just quite deliver. Abrams has yet to really wow me with any of his work, but he seems like he's getting better with experience. I figure in a few more years he'll be really good and I think he set up a decent foundation here for others to build upon.

WE GET IT ANTONY, YOU WENT TO FILM SCHOOL

Sometimes, late at night, I think about the Doom movie. So after I wrote my reply I started to think about it yet again. I didn't want to derail the thread, but I figured people would just talk around me. The Titanic probably had little order in its final moments.

I'm also probably the only person here who has seen the movie more than five times. And have read an original script. Or to have read the novelization.

We never learn about Goat's history much. The novelization mentions he was a brutal soldier, and in the film its suggested that he served time in prison for something. Although Reaper (Karl Urban) may have never spent time in prison, he is also described as having been an efficient soldier. Reaper stays about the same, just sort of musing over his survivor's guilt after what happened to his parents on Mars while simultaneously thinking that he's done some "bad things," but while on Mars again he clearly wants to do good and stop Sarge's (The Rock) murderous rampage. Reaper, in some kind of manner, actually changes for the better then, deciding to push back orders that he knew were bad, while Sarge decides to continue with his orders simply because that what he was trained to do. However, it seems Goat changed too. So why would he still become a monster? He may have been trying to escape his violent past, but what is success? Is he still a sadistic killer underneath? Did that Goat perish? THe thing is, the movie sort of contradicts itself on how the whole Chromosome 24 thing happens.

When Reaper is injected with it, he becomes super human because he is innately good. The film also goes out of its way to say that if Destroyer (The guy with the chain gun) lived, he would have also gone superhuman had he been injected, and maybe if he was infected.

Sarge, Dr. Carmack, and a character named Pinky all change into monsters. Sarge is clearly shown to give bad will towards men. Carmack idiotically tampers with science beyond his control and pays the price, and also shows a heartless side when he locks a scientist out of his office (Though this could be argued that he was simply buying time to save the whole base with a transmission, as he must of known full well that he wasn't going to make it out unscathed; Note that the scientist he locks out also turns into a zombie after losing her arm and getting beat up by the Hellknight monster). Pinky is shown to be a coward, and laughs at the fate of Portman, though he could be justified in that Portman (Annoying trash-talker guy who was actually a decently written character) was never very nice to Pinky. The film also establishes that Portman would have become a monster (Though the novelization says that he wasn't that bad, but simply acted that way).

It's mentioned in passing that Goat knows what a holding cell is, instating that he may have served time in prison once (He may have also been a guard).


Now, as far as transformations go, the C-24 seems to be based on whether or not the receiver is alive, or possibly whether or not the sender is previously mutated.

When Goat is infected, he is flat out killed. He is dead. There's a whole scene about how getting something shoved into his jugular straight up kills the guy. This alone could explain why he turned into a monster. How could he know and thus kill himself? Who knows. It's not clear. The novelization says something about this, but from a different character's perspective. Now if Goat was injected in the same way that Reaper was, he may have also become super human. But he was killed first, and chromosome, as delivered by a mutant monster, turned him into a zombie. As such, despite the fact that he was infected, he had no chance of becoming super human because was killed, and then he turned. It's possible that he would have only remained a zombie, too.

Dr. Carmack is infected by the Hellknight in the beginning of the film, and then he's left alive. He turned not into a zombie, but an Imp monster. He became a monster. Now, again, the giver was a mutant. However, Carmack was left alive. This also shows us that the virus has different effect times. In-universe, it seemed Goat took a few hours to turn. It's unclear as to how much time passed inbetween Carmack's transmission the "Squad's" arrival to Mars. They find Carmack, he talks a bit to Sam (Reaper's sister), then escapes the medical bay. The novelization actually has a scene showcasing an internal conflict for Carmack as he turns. Regardless of whether or not Carmack was malicious or stupid he turns into an Imp.

Pinky gets dragged off by the Hellknight after growing some balls and standing up to Sarge's evil after the latter executes The Kid (The team noobie; The scene of the Kid negating an order to kill civilians actually mimicks the original backstory for the Doomguy in the original Doom). Its unclear as to how he's infected or when, but he ends becoming a Doom 3 "pinky" demon. It's difficult to determine whether or not he's evil. An early script actually made him out to be a fairly malicious character, but the final film version he seemed much different. The fact that he seems to be an un-evil person who turns could also be due to the fact that he's infected by the infected. However, another thoery could be that those who are "bad" turn into monsters (Imps and Pinkies), while the dead simply become zombies.

Sarge is infected and survives, and the film seems to imply that he begins to turn into an Imp before he dies. However, this is weird because Sarge still carries a lot of personality as he changes, instead of becoming a mindless monster (Although the Hellknight is seen using a chainsaw, and a zombie laughs evilly before getting his head blown off. Another one writes words on a wall with her blood. Again, sort of inconsistent).

Throughout the film, we only see what happens to someone when directly injected with C-24 twice. The first time is when we see how the Hellknight was created out of a serial killer. He turns into a monster almost instantaneously after being injected, but not any monster, he becomes the monster. A big hulking beast that kills most of the main cast. The second time is when Reaper is injected, and he becomes super human and all of that. Sarge, Goat, everyone else, they just become in between. Who is chosen to be infected and who is chosen to die is also odd, though maybe the demons can sense good and bad. Note that Portman is abducted (But this fails because of the arrival of Sarge), while Destroyer and Duke (The other black guy) are both flat out killed.



Long story short, this is some kind of counter argument, which is also waaaay too much thought put into what I see as a rather mediocre film (I find this film neither awful nor great. It's somewhere in between, but that's seeing it solely as a standalone film. As an adaption of Doom 3, I see it as terrible).





Back to your Star Wars, now. Maybe this should have been a PM.

I can pretty much agree with just about all of this, but I have the singular caveat that I do not believe it actually hurts the movie, because it doesn't inherently need that depth to succeed. Star Wars is a series that has a decent amount of depth, but the vast majority of it comes from interpretation of what we're given on a large scale over the entire series. The only movie in the series that actually has depth on its own is The Empire Strikes Back, and that's fine. The relationship between Obi Wan and Luke isn't significantly deeper than the one between Rey and Han. The movie isn't significantly faster paced than A New Hope. I mean, you've really got to understand and accept that what we're seeing here functions less as a sequel to Return of the Jedi and more as a beginning of a new series that happens to feature some of the same characters. It's your introduction, and as such you don't really dig into the depth of it. It's there to pose questions - not to give answers.

When you look at it as a singular movie (which can be difficult to do, considering the circumstances), what we have is a movie about two young people who happen upon one another by chance, and find themselves on the same path by seeming matter of fate. They encounter a man that they've heard of only as legend, and he tells them that the stories they heard as kids are all true. The fairy tale isn't a lie, and now they're thrust into the middle of it. It's kinda like Luke learning that his dad was a big deal. No, no, no, son - you're here to do big things, you know? With Rey it's a little bit different, as she doesn't want anything to do with those big things, but she has to. It's a matter of what her role in the world is. Sometimes not wanting anything to do with it makes you the perfect person to have to do it. Anyway, this tangent isn't really getting me any closer to the point...

The idea that they're thrust into a fight that's much larger than what they understand, and subsequently find themselves in a much different place by the end of the film, doesn't inherently mean there's a problem with the perception of a lack of depth. As a single story, this works just fine. Rey has heard of Luke Skywalker, and her face lights up when she hears that he's real. The world is bigger than she realized, and when she meets him at the very end, holding out his lightsaber, it's her final transition into the person who is ready to step into that big world. Her character arc is complete.

Finn starts out as a guy who refuses to fight because he doesn't believe in what he's fighting for. It's not that he can't fight (because brother, he can), it's that he needs something that he can believe in. It's inferred that this has been a continuing problem with his individuality. He's told to report for retraining or whatever, because he just won't stop having feelings about things. No matter how hard you try, you can't pound out the idea of right and wrong from this guy's brain, and when he finally has his moment where he realizes that what he's doing is wrong, you see him open up as a person in the immediate aftermath. Not only does he have courage and the will to fight, but he has heart and a huge desire to do so. His escape with Poe in the TIE fighter brings him to life.

Star Wars has always been a series about discovering who you really are. Anakin transitions from a helpful young boy to a terrified young man, to an angry and malevolent monster, then to a selfless and loving father. Luke transitions from an inspired young man dissatisfied with his place in life, to a confident but confused student, then to a strong but fractured badass and finally to a man who is scared that he did it all wrong the whole time. Han starts out as an irresponsible ******** with a heart of gold, transitions into a desperate man-on-the-run, to an unlikely bumbling hero, and finally to a man who takes responsibility for his actions instead of running from them or trying to find some magical way out of them.

We're given The Force Awakens as a movie where we learn who these characters need to be. In the end, Finn fights a fight that he knows he'll lose, but he fights because he believes in the line-in-the-sand he's standing on the other side of. He loses a friend within the first ten minutes of the movie, then loses a mentor later on, and he'll be damned if he's going to lose anyone else. Rey finds her place instead of waiting for it to find her.

Poe just kinda keeps being Poe because he was obviously originally meant to be 1. Wedge Antilles, and 2. Killed in the runtime of the movie. That's fine, because Poe is great. He doesn't need to have depth, because he doesn't really have that much screentime. He's just a legit badass pilot with a heart of gold who happens to be crucial in enabling one of our central heroes.

Does the plot of the movie seem rushed? Yeah, it kinda does, but I don't see that as something that hurts it. I mean, in A New Hope, they seem to come up with their plan for assaulting the Death Star in about a half-hour because dammit they have to. It feels like something hit the cutting room floor with the way the Republic works or whatever, but I feel it's given enough time that it doesn't really hurt the movie. In A New Hope we're told that the Emperor has dissolved the senate offscreen, and they're just gonna iron fist it from here on out. It's fine, because it establishes the reason for why the Death Star needs blown up. Same scenario here.

I guess my point here is that the movie is designed purposefully to be similar to A New Hope, and that it really doesn't have any problems that A New Hope doesn't also have. Weird alien that doesn't really need to be there? Hello, Dianoga! Shadowy character with obscured motivation? ****, we don't even see the Emperor in A New Hope.

Like it or not, the original Star Wars was your prototypical light, summer blockbuster movie, and this one is, too. Depth comes later on. We're still getting to know each other right now.

I think you're right about pretty much all of this. It comes off as a movie that tried to be more than what it ended up being, and coincidentally it pretty much is the kind of movie that people act like The Force Awakens is. There's a lot of weird thematic stuff that isn't fleshed out in any logical way, and it actually utilizes the one thing that's generally pointed to as its greatest weakness (the demons actually being infected people) as its greatest strength. I like that the monsters don't come from hell, but instead come from inside what the people in the story actually are. There's a really great movie to be made about this concept, but Doom unfortunately isn't it. It's like someone was trying to make an actual good movie, but there was a lot of "it's just a videogame movie" stuff thrown in the way of it.

At the end of the day, it falls firmly into the "interesting failure" category with movies like Dreamcatcher (from the writer of The Empire Strikes back and The Force Awakens!)

It's weird to hear about that Doom movie in 2016. Never saw it--- I think when I heard it wasn't about demons from New Jersey, I wrote the movie off as a Resident Evil-lite or something.

Yeah, I think the Starkiller base battle falls flat because the characters were all highly competent. Han was shooting up Stormtroopers left and right. Finn knew the layout. Rey easily went everywhere.

I didn't see Starkiller base as a majestic or grand thing like the Death Star in AHN but a setting solely for the characters. Even though being bigger than the Deathstar, it felt surprising claustrophobic inside except in the scenes involving Rey climbing. Honestly, the spaces in the old Star Destroyer in the beginning felt more open. Thus I think it was mainly for character confrontation than an active agent for conflict (like the Deathstar in AHN scenes where Luke/Leia swing over the massive gap, Old Ben turning off the tractor beam, trash compactor problem) despite the close similarities. In other words, the ANH Deathstar's large interiors and emotionless spaces visually described the Empire and Tarkin's overconfidence whereas Kylo Ren, Hux and Snoke drama and problems exist more on their own (if that makes sense); The DS itself was the bag guy in the first film instead of a base that housed the bad guys.

It's like an extension of the second Deathstar imo, mainly used for the whole Luke and Emperor power play.

That seems pretty accurate.

Matrix Reloaded did both.

I enjoy Undercover Boss from time to time.

Get out.













































I don't mind Revelations even if it is piss.

When I got out of the theater from The Matrix: Reloaded, I was totally confused as to what had actually happened in the film.

Luckily, I quickly identified what was clearly a cynical ploy designed to make extra money off of people's confusion by getting them back into the theater two or even more times. One friend of mine was less perceptive than I, and he went back to the theater several times.

I wouldn't call them a cynical ploy. Perhaps an optimistic ploy: they were some of the first directors who saw that R-rated summer action audiences were becoming younger, better educated, and better connected. The whole point of the series was to give people stuff to speculate about online - even the original marketing: "What is the Matrix?"

I mean, obviously the last two movies were just WB letting them loose with their idea. Dunno what it is about dippy business people thinking that they can make lightning strike twice by changing the team, but hey, gotta do something to earn your bonus I guess.

I'm actually watching The Matrix: Reloaded right now.

Overall, I still really like this movie as well as Revolutions. There's something kind of unusual that happens between them, however, and it's particularly rare in scenarios where movies are filmed back-to-back. The aesthetic changes significantly between the two movies. Reloaded is extremely polished as far as shot selection and so on are concerned. Nearly every frame of the movie is an unbelievable image. It's so well composed, lit, etc... Say nothing of the special effects that are periodically shoddy, it's a very nice looking film, as was the original. In high definition, both movies really, really shine.

The third movie doesn't really have this going on as much. Granted, a sizable chunk of the movie takes place in reality, and as a result we're not given the super-crisp perfectly-lit scenes, but it just feels off. It's hard to see how such a marked change could happen between films, considering Revolutions is the Wachowskis' worst looking movie. It's not like them to make a movie that looks this way. Everything from Bound to Speed Racer to Cloud Atlas absolutely never comes off as aesthetically inert. It's not really about what the scenes are, either. It's more just how they're shot.

Honestly, that's really the main problem with the third movie. It's tonally different in most ways. Now, it's fair to also point out that Reloaded is tonally different from The Matrix in just as many ways, but I really can't understand a reason for the strange difference in settings and so on. Reloaded also spends extensive screen time going on about the philosophical what-have-you, and Revolutions is just essentially a race against time for the duration. I don't really disagree with the idea that it needs to be briskly paced, but it just feels off. Most of the big emotional moments fall flat because it also somehow feels like the characters haven't really been through that much. I mean, clearly they've gone through a lot in the movie, but it just feels... I don't know, incomplete? Like it was missing a few story beats or something.

I think that ultimately it becomes largely a problem with editing. It spends a significant amount of time with Neo and Trinity, and then it spends a significant amount of time with Morpheus and everyone else. The scenes in the dock get interwoven in there, but this is a movie that breaks itself into big chunks of things that are supposed to all be happening essentially at the same time. Jon brought this up a few pages ago wrt the third act of Return of the Jedi, and I feel like Revolutions is a perfect example of the opposite of that. I mean, these are things that need to convey a sense of urgency, but they don't.

I'm not entirely sure if they just got worn out or what, but it really hurts the movie at the end of the day, and I think the Matrix series exists as probably the best instance in all of cinema of why it can be a really bad idea to shoot movies back to back.

That being said, they're still plenty enjoyable films as a series. However, I'm usually pretty hard-pressed to find a series that I can't enjoy on some level. Never hate a movie.

I've never seen the Matrix sequels. People's disappointment put me off for good I think, as I still have no interest in watching them.

Same. Once my list of creations of no interest included the Matrix sequels, Dragon Ball GT and Mass Effect 3. Now only the Matrix sequels are left. And they're probably just as horrible as DBGT was (and as lacklusterish as ME3 sans DLC).

I felt people took too much out of the first movie and expected too much from the sequels. Apart from the rave-in-a-cave in Reloaded and the drawn-out Trinity death scene in Revolutions, I found them entertaining and relatively consistent in the general narrative.

Best part of Revolutions is the captain of the Mjolnir saying "god damn" about 50 times.