Also Yoda being a crazy ******* when he first meets Luke is so damn great.

Okay well to be honest it's a little more than subtle; it's practically text. But it's good framing and presents how we are supposed to understand the Empire well. I remember when people were saying the sassy Vader in Rogue One felt off, and it does in contrast to Empire. In Empire it's clear people don't know what to think and are scared as each person is handed the role of Admiral and promptly executed for a single failure.

Some say the "apology accepted, Captain Needa" line was sassy but it's not framed that way. Everybody just looks freaked out, and the fact Captain Needa did the most honest, straightforward thing he could but was still killed shows just how much of a ruthless ******* Vader is. They did a phenomenal job.

Basically what I'm saying is Disney Star Wars is garbage. Empire is focused, clear, has plenty of fantastic worldbuilding, and just hits the right notes. Disney Star Wars has massive tone problems, pacing problems and is confused about what it wants to be.

There are lots of things in life that I'm often uncertain about.

"Should I go with macaroni or some other kind of pasta to go with this fish?"

And while I still have absolutely no interest in seeing The Last Jedi, or even getting it on Blu-Ray for a later viewing, I am still 100% certain, without any doubt whatsoever, that my only problem with the film would still be the following:

It won't start with "Nikumubeki Presents" and the credits will never read "Directed By: Nikumubeki".

Oy.

Interesting reason beyond all the additional scenes that these films are so long is there is about an extra (it feels like) 20 minutes of credits at the end of each one of them because they list the entire fan club at the end. I only watch the extended version of the films now. In fact, I remember when I picked up Fellowship of the Ring on DVD it had a preview for the extended edition. I didn't buy another one until the entire extended trilogy was released together. I watched all those films in the theater. For the hobbit I waited until they were all out to watch them and then didn't buy it until the extended versions came down to a nice price. I might be a fan but I'm a budget minded fan.



I actually always enjoyed that film. I'm sure if I were to watch it with a critical eye I would find plenty not to like about it though. With all the Trek movies it was always a mediocre one followed by a better one. I guess it just had to be better than Insurrection.

Nice. She's right that knowing *why* the First Order exists is kind of relevant, and how it's fine because the context of the Empire in the original trilogy is clear enough to not need explanation.

It's clear in ESB that the Imperial army doesn't really want to be following Vader's orders. They eyeroll, Vader gets objections, they're clearly not into being in the middle of nowhere chasing a ship. It's Vader's cruelty which keeps them in check, and it's so overbearing no one speaks out against him.

We like the Rebellion more because of this context: we see the individual identity of the rebels, see them smile, see passion. The Empire shows us nothing but fear and order. We feel inclined towards the Rebels based only on the framing.

I think they knew this in TLJ and felt "we only need to make space fascists lol" without thinking about why the context works. All we need to know for Star Wars is The Empire exists, and they suck, frankly who cares how they got there? (Man, imagine if they went back and told the origin story.. it would be so unnecessary). But you can't have the space fascists popping up from nothing.. it makes no sense.

I get now why people say George Lucas was a good worldbuilder, even if he was deficient in other areas of filmmaking. The OT sets the stage phenomenally. Sure, it does hinge on our cultural understanding of Nazism and fascism, but man, you definitely feel like you understand the world of the OT. Without the movie taking you on a handhold casino trip and telling you explicitly "war is bad" and "child slavery isn't good".

I recall a different video essay that more specifically calls out the theme park-ization of America and how insanely problematic it is that Disney has a fascist army parading through a mock up Middle Americatown for all of the American kids to fawn over, but I don’t remember who authored it.

So instead I will independently point out, it is probably a bad thing for Disney to be marketing fascism to kids.

I was definitely me who posted that video and talked about it. I'll try to dig it up.

A-ha!

Busted!

Watching The Last Jedi again. At one point Snoke scolds Kylo because there's still hope in the galaxy.

The more I think about it, the more "wat" this line sounds. So like, Snoke is just some evil bad guy who wants everybody to be in a bad mood? Is that the ultimate end game of the First Order? To make people feel bad? The Empire crushed hope and inspired fear, but it was for control and political power. Snoke seems to be aimlessly evil. Which is not as compelling.

I think it was Brian that mentioned reading Revenge of the Sith a long time ago (but in this galaxy) and how the conversation with Anakin and Palpatine at the opera explained things from Palpatine's perspective and made him not "aimlessly evil" as you call it. Of course Palpatine was far better written in RotJ and then had some actual background later in the prequels. Snoke's potential as a villain was completely wasted. But it's all going to come together in the next movie I'm sure.

Yeah, I remember the dialogue being cringey, but at least the prequels had a kind of logic there.. poorly communicated, but at least it was there.

I think I realized something about why I find TLJ hard to get into.

Really, they should not have hired Rian Johnson and should have fired Bob Ducsay. Rewatching made me realize how completely awkward much of the editing is.

I edited some of the dialogue in TLJ. I encourage you to listen. What comes first is a section of dialogue as it is in the film, unchanged. I spaced out the dialogue and make it feel more natural. That comes second.

In the film, I felt the pacing of that dialogue was super awkward. It felt quippy, and didn't match the tone of the scene. When I change the timing of the dialogue, it feels much better to me.

My guess is, given that TLJ was already too long, they re-edited a bunch of dialogue to pass by quicker. The end result is dialogue feels awkward when it shouldn't. The editing destroys the delivery.

Not me. I read the OT books and bunch of novels (I mailed a big box to someone on here a long time ago) but I don't think I've read anything that was written after the prequel trilogy was released.

I'm sure you're being sarcastic, given the next one is being directed by "Clo" J. "Lost" J. "Fringe" Abrams "verfield"

Chill out dude you found out why there are polar bears on the island. What else do you want?

Well, certainly the last sentence was sarcasm but I'm saddened that he had to confirm it as such. I thought he knew me better than that.

Ugh, I just watched Avengers: Infinity War. I really didn't like it. First, apparently I must have missed a whole bunch of the plot because I missed a few other Marvel movies (the one where Captain America fights Iron Man, one of the Thor ones, the magic guy with the red cape one, and probably a couple other ones?). Second, there were way too many characters. And the end, ugh. Wish I never watched it. It's gotta be one of those things where "it was all just a dream" or someone goes back in time and hits the "undo" button.

So you're the one. I mean, I don't know what it's like to not watch the Marvel movies but I can imagine Infinity War would be a mess if you're not into them.

Guess what could use the Undo button (in the Massassi.net files section)?

Nebula finds out about Gamorra, gets mad, steals the infinity gauntlet and uses it to roll back everything Thanos did. I just saved you 2 1/2 hours. Signed, someone who didn’t watch the movie and probably won’t watch its sequel either.

Yeah, the last few Marvel movies setup the characters/minor plots leading into IW so they're like several prologues to have it make any sense. Captain Marvel is the next movie to come out, and she's supposed to be the "most powerful" Avenger yet, according to the studio. Fury called (paged?) her at the end, so she'll probably be the key to fixing everything

I finally watched Justice League last night. Didn't think it was too bad, although the dialogue differences compared to the trailers is kinda annoying. What really surprises me is how cavalier they seem to be about using their real names out in the open, it's amazing that their identity's aren't (in-universe) public knowledge at this point.

Generally I think it helps when a movie gets trashed so bad that expectations are so lowered that disappointment is minimized. For me anyway. The opposite certainly is true for me as well. The Force Awakens was so generally praised that I probably recoil further the other direction than rational (except for the fact that the new trilogy is crapping all over the original trilogy, imo).

I think it's said what DC did. They could have had a long term vision but they rushed into it. It used to be that Marvel couldn't pull off a movie. [Of course when I say DC and Marvel I know the studios are the big part of this.] There is no good or successful Marvel film from the time of the "first" Superman film in 1978 to Batman and Robin in 1997. I only include Batman and Robin because both of those franchises started with two great films and petered out but four out of six films over fourteen years from 1978 to 1992 were pretty great and still hold up. Superman Returns wasn't technically bad, just boring. Green Lantern is really a hidden gem and is bound to become a cult classic. Actually, that was a joke. I didn't realize how bad that movie was until I picked it up cheap one day.

Anyway, so Marvel had some really great films starting with X-Men and Spider-Man and while they had weak entries none of them were terrible (until maybe X-Men Origins). I think Daredevil is underappreciated. I only watch the Director's Cut now, though. I think the theatrical cut is bad after watching that but it didn't bother me much before then. I was disappointed with Elektra at the time but it's not the worst comic book film. With the MCU I think they have done phenomenal and taken real risks that have paid off. Some people say Iron Man 2 is bad but it's not really. It has some great scenes. Black Panther is totally overrated and the weakest IMO although I was not a fan of the first two Thor films originally.

Nolan's Batman trilogy probably shows the best that you can do with modernizing and staying faithful to a beloved character. What they did with Superman in Man of Steel probably demonstrates the opposite. From what I understand they went in during post and literally darkened the entire film to mimic Batman. They allowed the character to be as uncharismatic as possible, whether through casting or direction I don't know. They put the character in the position of being the stranger that is the harbinger of doom rather than a beloved protector of a city/country/world and never let him recover from that. And then they brought back a different Batman.

I can watch Man of Steel but it's a terrible way to reboot a character but they already had the Batman they needed at the end of the Nolan films. What they should have done was build the other characters similar to how Marvel did. Interestingly, what they were doing with Thor wasn't really working so they allowed the character to change (rather than change the character). When they brought them all together there was a group that fans were pretty happy with and a villain they already knew and kind of liked. You just can't make this stuff up. Actually, you can and they did.

After some character development, go offer Bale a crapload of money to come back and play the older, broken Bat they needed and if he wouldn't do it bring in Affleck or whomever. Can you just imagine the pop if they could have pulled off a Bale Batman AND kept it secret? That could have gone down in history as one of the most shocking reveals in cinema.

My son and I were both not feeling well last night so we tried to find something light to watch on Netflix. There seems to be a lack of comedies on there (and on Amazon and Hulu). We somehow ended up watching Thor: Ragnarok (probably because I wanted to know some of what I was missing from the beginning of the other Avengers movie). Holy hell I enjoyed the hell out of this movie! It felt sort of like Star Wars mixed with Fifth Element and some super heroes thrown in. I really liked the planet/world they ended up on and I loved the atmosphere there, all the colorful characters and costumes. Even the Jurassic Park guy was not annoying (for the first time ever). The whole thing was so over-the-top, I couldn't stop laughing. I'm glad there are these super hero movies where they don't take everything so seriously.

Magic Strange Dude was in it briefly and he annoyed me again. My son is encouraging me to watch his movie as well... ugh.

Doctor Strange is really fun. It’s not as zany as Thor 3 but the visuals are really cool and the ending was meme worthy.

Though now you understand what I meant when I said Taika Waititi (Thor 3 director) should have been put on Solo or a Lando stand-alone movie. Guy’s cut from a different cloth.

I haven't seen Solo yet but yeah I could see it done by the same director. I guess I'll check out Doctor Strange next time I'm in the mood.

I stopped watching the Iron Man vs. Captain America movie about halfway through because it was just so lame (the entire plot). And I actually really like both Iron Man and Captain America (well, at least since they started coming out with their movies, I never was in to comic books).

Civil War has some probably poor plot twists but it's a great movie. Doctor Strange was really good and a nice change for a hero film. Ragnarok was a little too funny a little too much. I still thought it was a great film, just could have toned down the humor a little for my tastes but I'm glad you liked it. I wonder if the order you're watching these in is affecting your view. I don't get Civil War being lame at all but we all have our own tastes. If you didn't get to the airport scene or the climax I just feel that you're really missing out. But, I watch 'em all. Actually, I buy them all.

On this topic what are opinions of James Gunn's firing?

You brought it up, what are your thoughts?

I don't know if I trust the accusers.

It was old news, been addressed before. Shouldn't have been fired just to appease some social media *******s.

Yeah! Making public statements should never reflect on one's character!

This is partly though why Twitter should be deleted. Haven't public figures learned by now that having a vessel to broadcast your xanax-fueled racist thoughts to the world at 2am is a bad idea?

Maybe he should just go into politics where you can pretty much do whatever you want and still be "successful."

Getting fired for your massassi posts

I was fired from my Job because of a post in 2003 in which I said "Jan Ors has a hot ass".

Unfortunately for some, when you're in the public spotlight these things start to matter.

Personally I don't know what he even said nor do I care.

There are degrees of being in the "public spotlight" these days. If you're unlucky enough to be involved in a news cycle, journalists are going to try to find their own angle to the story by snooping into your past and digging up salacious dirt on you, no matter how peripheral it is to your life or the news story.