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Post by stampidhd280pro on Jun 8, 2022 13:08:48 GMT
Yeah, I'm starting to feel too many TFA flashbacks. The sentimentality, the familiar beats. A bit too on the nose. There isn't much subtlety to this series. The interrogation room was a lot like Snoke's throne room. Pretty colors, but it just looks like a set. Star Wars never looks like a set.
I guess there's a lot hanging on the next couple weeks. I wonder how long it will take for fans to edit it down to one 3 hour movie.
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Post by Cryogenic on Jun 8, 2022 14:22:58 GMT
Yeah, I'm starting to feel too many TFA flashbacks. The sentimentality, the familiar beats. A bit too on the nose. There isn't much subtlety to this series. Star Wars isn't that subtle, though. Well, the prequels kinda are. Everything is kind of this mixture. But then, you have still have the "good", kindly Chancellor Palpatine transforming into the monstrous, deranged Darth Sidious. Not trying to be obtuse, because I sense what you mean. This series isn't as lyrical as the Saga films. It has a blunter approach. Like all TV Star Wars? When the series steps outside of the cinematic medium, it becomes a bit diminished. Yeah, so many of the sets and costumes do look overly clean and antiseptic. There's also a sort of mad spaciousness to some of the sets that feels off. Wide corridors, wide rooms. It adds to the clinical, detached feel of the environments. Lucas was really careful with how he controlled both the tone and scale of everything. There sure is. But I kinda liked this one. I'll be watching it again later before sharing my thoughts. I'd like to see a single "movie" edit of this. It would be cool if Disney released disc versions of all their shows, too. The streaming quality is acceptable, but nothing amazing. |
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Post by stampidhd280pro on Jun 8, 2022 14:42:58 GMT
Yeah I didn't feel that bad after watching it but I do still get the sense that nothing has happened yet. Maybe it will be like the prequels in that the third act is the one that really matters. Hopefully.
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Post by Cryogenic on Jun 8, 2022 14:49:54 GMT
Yeah I didn't feel that bad after watching it but I do still get the sense that nothing has happened yet. Maybe it will be like the prequels in that the third act is the one that really matters. Hopefully. In many ways, they've gone for more of a plot-driven show over a character-driven, introspective one. Six episodes would make sense for the latter, but it doesn't make a great deal of sense for the former. You can only pull that off if you're being really tight and careful with the plotting in every episode: every act of every episode. And it doesn't really feel like they are at this point. This episode is the shortest of the bunch and has more of a "filler" quality. It was great seeing Obi-Wan rediscovering his Jedi powers, however. I also appreciate the variety of the series. Each episode really is its own little genre. Still, this is too close to call right now. There's a lot riding on the last two episodes, that's for sure. |
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Post by Cryogenic on Jun 8, 2022 15:00:02 GMT
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Post by Seeker of the Whills on Jun 8, 2022 16:54:55 GMT
I don't know what to say except I really didn't like it.  The "tomb" of Jedi corpses felt like it was done for cheap shock value. I'm kind of getting the feeling that they are following in the footsteps of Rogue One's Vader. I don't know. I'm not feeling it. Have to rewatch. |
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Post by ArchdukeOfNaboo on Jun 8, 2022 17:03:20 GMT
I really liked the first 3 episodes. This fourth one, however, was rough - very rough. It does indeed feel like filler.
It seems like Obi-Wan has become a supporting character in his own show. Do we really have to care about this random imperial from Game of Thrones? That scene where they make such a fuss over her title of address took me completely out of the show, it was almost like blue milk all over again. Space fascists lecturing each other on 3rd wave feminism, really?
Now there's a subconscious problem I had with the ST that I haven't put into words here before, and you sum it up nicely, as it equally applies to the Inquisitor buildings in this series. There's so much empty space doing nothing, laid to waste, there simply to fill up the screen. Contrast this with the Theed Royal Palace in Episode I, including the generator area where the Darth Maul fight takes place, where the grandeur, stateliness and advanced technology always has a purpose.
stampidhd280pro I suppose you could also argue they were trying to mirror the interrogation of adult Leia in Episode IV, no? It may not be depicted on screen, but it is implied. Still, it did feel like they were trying to ape the scene from TFA, throwing it the vacuous production design of TLJ's interiors ( Tron Legacy, as Ingram calls it) for good measure.
Absolutely. TV series are allowed to have a stinker episode, there's no shame in not always striking a home run, and yet you can't help but think they deliberately handicapped themselves by doing only six instalments. Coupled with that, you question why they went to all the trouble of bringing back Christensen, and paraded him so thoroughly on the promotion tour.
It appeared like this was going to be a character study, didn't it? When Chow referenced Joker, I was excited to hear it, but now at this point, I don't see any of that. This Part 4 took a hard right from the strong PT influences of the first 3 episodes, and comes across as dull, ungrounded, lacklustre, ambitionless and vaguely hanging off some ST allusions.
It feels like they're stalling on a big reveal for Reva, and it's particularly evident in her scenes with Leia. Why not just get it over with? Tell us about her memories of the Jedi Temple during Order 66, what does it matter that little Leia hears it? Reva makes for a half-hearted interrogation officer, she lacks a menacing presence. I think most of us will now admit to missing the infighting dynamic between her and the Grand Inquisitor. Have we just witnessed another Snoke?
I loved the introduction of Freck in the third episode, it was the one of the key features that sells it as Star Wars. The lack of alien diversity in this episode is telling, very human-centric, super ST vibes going on, you'd be forgiven for thinking Abrams directed it. I'm sorry but cramming as many human female characters in your shots as possible is a very poor substitute.
The only scene I can say I truly enjoyed watching was the moment at the end with Obi-Wan and Leia, sitting beside each other other, on the way home after a successful rescue. Okay, I also liked the "some things can't be forgotten" line from Obi-Wan, you can certainly read it as a rebuke of Johnson's TLJ.
Overall, disappointing stuff, but we'll see where it goes next week.
Here's a discussion about the series (up to the 3rd episode) from a group of friends who made the popular Kenobi fan film from 2019. Whilst they're underwhelmed and relatively pessimistic on the show, I think you'll love how they reminisce about the weirdness, that undiluted, uncompromising, unapologetic, unfiltered Lucasian quality to the prequels. They're also older than the stereotypical twentysomething prequelists you usually see online.
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Post by Cryogenic on Jun 8, 2022 18:18:58 GMT
*Grand Inquisitor voice* The key to enjoying Obi-Wan Kenobi is patience re-watching it. I really liked the first 3 episodes. This fourth one, however, was rough - very rough. It does indeed feel like filler. Yep. But look, I appreciate they maybe wanted a leaner installment, before perhaps two heavier installments for the final act. Also, in some ways, the episode did do its job at underlining the spookiness of the Sith Empire (those preserved Jedi corpses), as well as showing Obi-Wan recovering his Jedi mojo. Leia and Reva also came across as strong, determined characters here: stubborn resolve meeting steely determination. It was a solid episode, and a nice homage to the stealthy, run-and-gun, storm-the-base roots of the series, but it felt like it perhaps could and should have brought more to the table. However, before commenting in more detail, I plan to re-watch it later. I think that if they had made eight episodes instead of just six, there'd be reason to feel a bit more confident of where it's going and how the remaining plot and character arcs will be resolved. In an eight-episode season (like "The Mandalorian"), we'd have just reached the half-way point; which makes sense given where we find the characters now, especially Obi-Wan. However, we're instead two-thirds done. These last two episodes have to develop Obi-Wan further, give us another Obi-Wan/Vader confrontation, finish whatever they're doing with Reva, deposit Leia back on Alderaan, and return Obi-Wan himself to Tatooine, changed and renewed, plus a few other bits of tidying up. That's a lot to pack into two episodes. I guess we'll see. I actually really liked Reva in this episode. I liked her hard-soft approach with Leia. It felt believable for her character and Moses Ingram pulled off a strong performance here. I really don't get the hate for her character that's already emerged online. But Reva by herself isn't that strong of an antagonist. That's why I'm glad to still see Vader around.
The human-centric nature of Disney Star Wars has been apparent since the ST, yeah. That said, I really liked the scene of Tala and Reva facing off against one another, and I think Reva again had one of the best lines of the episode when she said, "I don't know if you're lying to me or for me."
Ha! I think I mildly had a similar impression from that line. But was that really the only scene you liked? I loved Obi-Wan recovering his superhuman Jedi skills as he fended off all those stormtroopers and tried to stop the glass from cracking. He was a total Jedi badass there and it was satisfying how his powers organically emerged -- like his determination to rescue Leia after recovering in the bacta tank was so strong, his old skills naturally came rushing back. Fantastic action directing in that little stretch. I also liked how insanely angry and raw Vader was with Reva. This is definitely a Vader who is still a "work in progress". You can feel a lot of Anakin's post-Mustafar fury underneath. I love that.
I'm planning to dig into other responses -- i.e., YouTube videos -- later. I see that people are pretty upset with this series now. I'm not sure I can really relate to their complaints. True, a part of me is wondering whether this series will really have been worth it in the end, but I had lot of happy vibes with the first two episodes, and I can't agree with what fans are bitching about in those two. Thus, I'm trying to distance myself from whatever my issues are with the third and fourth episodes, just so I can remain centered and not become unduly influenced by the negativity.
My mind says this series has a lot going for it, but my prequel-loving heart is a bit concerned that it might be a bit of a commercial scam and has already fallen way short of its true potential. Again, I don't want to entertain too much negativity, especially as the fanboy in me seems to love a lot of stuff that other fans are indifferent or hostile toward. I can understand a certain level of animosity toward the sequels, but these days, everything Disney has done with the franchise just seems to meet the same kind of angry, bitter torrent of fan complaining ("Rogue One" and "The Mandalorian" being the only exceptions).
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Post by ArchdukeOfNaboo on Jun 8, 2022 22:28:16 GMT
I'm guessing Hayden must have had at least some scenes in the Vader suit, if the the movement choreographer posts a picture like this. A lot warmer than the one below with the two stunt doubles it should be said 
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Post by Anthony on Jun 8, 2022 23:35:16 GMT
Another good-but-not-great episode... Well we'll see where it goes  |
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Post by jppiper on Jun 8, 2022 23:42:15 GMT
AnthonyYou know the One thing that's missing from the Vader scenes so far? His Theme The Imperial March Fans aren't happy about this
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Post by nickromancer on Jun 8, 2022 23:46:37 GMT
The writers must believe a character study is a Macguffin plot interspersed with flashbacks of previous footage. There’s an impression that they want to do something but they never explore it and it’s starting to seem like Lucasfilm isn’t hiring writers with the ability to fulfill their ambition or who lack ambition all together.
And why any director handed the opportunity to make their mark on Star Wars would want to do an episode where the screen is 90% grey corridors is beyond me. But it’s happened ten times in the past five years
Somehow it feels like everyone is too excited about making Star Wars to make exciting Star Wars
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Post by Ingram on Jun 9, 2022 6:59:22 GMT
Oh, in the name of... I wish Disney would stop jerking audiences around and just call this: Star Wars Episode III Part 2: The Empire Strikes No, I'm serious. How can we NOT call it such at this point?
Obi-Wan, Vader, Leia, Inquisition, entombed Jedi... Disney really knows how to bring out the cynic in me. There is something coldly economical going on here with the plundering of natural resources. This series is going to the well more directly and in greater volume than anything Disney's done before with the franchise but only at a quarter of the cost, as if they're out to maximize fandom click-bait story content without risking a feature-length budget that might underperform. To be sure, I'd rather they'd done something entirely new but, that aside, tighten up the runtime, flip the bill and go big -- theatrical -- for a three-act spectacle wherein Obi-Wan protects a child Leia, the cliff notes regarding the Jedi purge are elucidated and with Vader looming large over events. Instead, Disney went with 'dollar store' Star Wars because...? Ugh. The whole thing is eerily vampiric.
Aaaanyhow... This is probably my favorite episode so far. It's mostly just Obi-Wan the platform game. Deal! ~ Obi-Wan underwater is cool, but in a perfect world they would've given him an alien creature equivalent of the fake reconnaissance-crocodile that Roger Moore used in Octopussy. I got my hopes up for a brief instant with the man-sized sea creature we do see at first. Alas, a perfect world tis not.
~ Ice Cube Jr. is in this. He's given a lousy contrived monologue opposite McGregor, the latter of whom as usual is playing the scene in a completely different tone that seems to intuitively understand what Star Wars should be.
~ I like how all the lights are turned off in every scene. That cut-rate production design ain't gonna hide itself, ya know. Speaking of which... ~ It's obvious that Leia's scenes were written to be filmed in a day. Because school and stuff.
~ Lady who plays lady character is still boring. She has one personality: asexual fence post. I get that she's supposed to be all dour from a life of Imperial disillusionment but, Jesus H., her scenes carrying the plot badly need some spring in their step, whether it's the actress or the script or both. Speaking of which... ~ Question: Which looks cooler, Imperial officers in grey or black? I keep going back 'n' fourth on this one.
~ I swear, the Fifth Brother Inquisitor is just straight-up comedy at this point, precisely because they're trying to make him a sinister goon when all he's really done is walk around and bitch about everything in some of the show's most perfectly timed moments. He's such an unintentionally ironic dipshit. Oh, how I am waiting for his sarlacc pit death. It's gonna be great.
~ Give Reva more to do other than stand around hamming dialogue. I mean, yes, she's ahem "good" at it but the Reva I prefer didn't even appear in this episode until she whipped out her saber against a T-47 before Force-throwing a box of video tapes at it. Speaking of which...
~ Wade, no! I can't believe they killed Wade. He's gone. I'm devastated. The instant it happened I felt a great disturbance among the home-viewing fandom, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
~ "I don't know if you're lying to me or for me." lolwut ~ Jedi petrified in crystalized amber was pretty neat. Effectively grim without being needlessly morbid.
~ My brain functionally deleted Vader entirely from the previous episode for having reduced him (opposite Obi-Wan) to a truck stop slasher psycho. Here, he's back to himself proper, at least a little more so. But it pisses me off when they film him in handheld closeups. Never ever stick Darth Vader with shaky-cam.
~ Getting back to Obi-Wan himself in NES Ninja Gaiden mode, yes, this will do for me just fine, relatively speaking. I shrug with indifference to the labored motif duality linking his burn scars with Vader's or, for that matter, the 'surrogate father' arc that links him with Leia—mortar screenwriting 101. It's there because it works well as a simulation of yesteryear Star Wars. But Obi-Wan doing low-key action marks the show's reigning delight and affords us with (moderately) rad comic-strip venues. My single standout favorite visual of the series to date:
Why, you ask? It's succinct. No ostentatiously symmetrical scale pulled form a Lady Gaga video or gimmicky surrealist fever-dream POVs, just a clean space-pulp thriller moment with our aged, taxed hero thrown back into the deep end and struggling to keep his head above water, the Empire inches away.
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Post by Cryogenic on Jun 9, 2022 9:04:41 GMT
The writers must believe a character study is a Macguffin plot interspersed with flashbacks of previous footage. There’s an impression that they want to do something but they never explore it and it’s starting to seem like Lucasfilm isn’t hiring writers with the ability to fulfill their ambition or who lack ambition all together. I can kinda see how it comes about: They all get together in a writer's room, brainstorm ideas, and compete for who can come up with the best "hook". Rather than writing a story from their imagination, they collectivise the process and build it all around the chosen hook. In this case, it's obviously Ben protecting Leia, while Reva looms in the background, her backstory turned into another "mystery box" that limply propels the story forward. Heh! To be fair, in this episode, they came up with windows. Lots and lots of windows. Murky-green windows, too. The Inquisitor base was verging on looking dangerously like an unfinished greenscreen set. It was a pretty empty, lonely place, too. Mind you, that did accentuate the "tomb" feel of the place, made rather literal when Obi-Wan finds those preserved bodies and mouths the word (in a blatant ripoff of Boromir's line in LOTR: FOTR). Also: "Quiet as a tomb." Something like that, yeah. I wish they'd stop pinching themselves that they're making Star Wars and just, y'know... make Star Wars. Oh, in the name of... I wish Disney would stop jerking audiences Hand Job Wars. I sorta prefer it being a miniseries, but there is something a bit faux-operatic about it. It feels like they're using this series to build out this patch of the franchise's mythical time-space; treating it as just another thing in a long line of things that will, as you said, generate clickbait headlines and ultimately earn itself a few new data entries on Wookieepedia. A franchise-padder rather than the character study that was promised. No doubt, a theatrical feature could have been leaner and meaner. In fairness, though, it's not quite "dollar store" Star Wars; there are just places where it lacks the gravitas of a feature film. I don't see how it looks or feels substantially different to something like "Rogue One". A little less disciplined? Maybe. More gauche or plastic? Not really. Not to me. In fact, I already prefer it to the former. Perhaps I'm even a little drunk on those "natural resources". At least Obi-Wan has been firmly situated in "Modern Star Wars" here: both form and content. *Threepio moment* What did I say? Yeah, that's kinda what I took from it, too. They were? I recall it being gloomy-looking in a few places. And Obi-Wan does deliberately cut the lights in the torture chamber (shades of Anakin battling Dooku in the hangar). Still, I think there was a reasonable attempt at some kind of "mood" in this episode. Obi-Wan is returning to his old self, but Leia has been abducted by really bad people this time (the string-pullers of the goons of the first episode), and there's this dour, solemn tone amidst the hijinks. However, the episode performs an odd tonal shift at the climax, which I think you encapsulated nicely below:
Yeah, what the fuck was that about? Like, the whole action ending was weird (child Leia being snuck out under Obi's coat?), and that was the 1980s Paul Verhoeven cherry on top.
HAHAHA. Yeah, when that N-1 starfighter careens to the ground and explodes in TPM, that's it. Just a flying machine and its occupant meeting death. In this thing, they just had to have some big, weepy, THIS IS WHAT'S AT STAKE NOW follow-up scene, didn't they? Too TLJ for my tastes. The wife even looked like a cut-rate Rose Tico.
The shaky-cam bullshit in every episode annoys the frikk out of me. It just isn't Star Wars. And yeah, as great as that scene was, the shaky-cam brought it down a peg.
You're right that those stylistic choices and screenwriting motifs are laboured. The intercutting between Obi-Wan and Vader immersed in bacta was predictable. And the Obi-Wan/Leia father-daughter dynamic, while fitting and well done, is a tad generic and a bit too obvious compared to the multifarious parent-child, mentor-student links in the Saga films. Still, yeah, I perhaps go with it a bit more than you. I'm critical in places, but feeling more generous to the series than you are. And yes:
That's a fantastic shot. Wonderful composition. Much more like something Lucas might have done. I'm planning to re-watch the episode today, but that certainly stood out on my first viewing. Is this the red-hot middle of Obi-Wan? The Act Two window pane? Obi-Wan progressing up the levels? (So many threes in this thing!!!). This scene was a rare instance of 1950s B-movie horror with competent framing to go with it. Seeing Obi-Wan in more classic-looking Jedi robes just completes the image.
To me, this actually was a pretty good episode. Pretty good, mind you. Not great. I got some kind of "Quantum Of Solace"/"Skyfall" vibe from the morbid tone in the base scenes. Obi-Wan performing Jedi stunts was almost out of place. Of course, it was also the most satisfying, anime-like part of the episode. There's a slightly scattershot quality to the series so far. And a part of me actually likes that.
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Post by ArchdukeOfNaboo on Jun 9, 2022 18:14:35 GMT
I notice a great deal of snobbery towards the television series format in recent pages here. I mean, are some of you still living in the 1990s? Did you not take note of what happened in the past decade? The cinema has become a shadow of its former glorious self, and is now stuck with a Marvel form of diarrhoea; all the best screen drama comes on the small screen.
With the right storytellers, and an appropriate budget, I think the series format is a great fit for Star Wars. Lucas himself pioneered this with The Clone Wars, let's not forget - it's not as radically new as you think it is. It begun in 2008. He was also trying to do a live action version in Underworld, as we explored in another thread.
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Post by Ingram on Jun 9, 2022 20:23:57 GMT
I notice a great deal of snobbery towards the television series format in recent pages here. I mean, are some of you still living in the 1990s? Did you not take note of what happened in the past decade? The cinema has become a shadow of its former glorious self, and is now stuck with a Marvel form of diarrhoea; all the best screen drama comes on the small screen.
With the right storytellers, and an appropriate budget, I think the series format is a great fit for Star Wars. Lucas himself pioneered this with The Clone Wars, let's not forget - it's not as radically new as you think it is. It begun in 2008. He was also trying to do a live action version in Underworld, as we explored in another thread.
I've since posited some argument as to why but will reiterated that I'm nowhere near as accepting of this so-called "Second Golden Age" of television as is everyone else. I think it extremely overrated. Not garbage to be dismissed outright but certainly overrated, especially with all the worst habits of long-form storytelling and commonplace 'method' drama that tends to drag-out a narrative with little-to-no regard for presentational form and often well past its expiration date. From the scripting phase onto the editing room, just about every feature-filmmaker is obliged to hone their work with prudence. Some manage more cannily than others; Lucas in particular was impressively ruthless. With showrunners the whole mindset is all but reversed: to treat every season, episode, scene, like a quota to be met, to sustain on average a 22 to 45-minute runtime no matter what, at the core of it. Padding, lots of padding. Menial goings-on. Such is the obvious characteristic of all modern television that strikes me apparent, that always leaves me with the impression that I'm watching something prefab and intended as disposable time-consumption most convenient for the living-room viewer. I can almost feel the writers by mandate rationing out plot and narrative developments like canned goods—compositional movement & momentum being of no concern to the process of packaging with equal portions, and with pop-IPs like Star Wars being reduced to some kind of weekly "Loot Crate" of trivial trinkets. In recent years the industry of thrifty digital FX -- stock and ubiquitous -- along with chic multi-media marketing has brought about a bad tendency for genre shows to feign cinematic grandeur, in turn only delineating that much more the aforesaid modus operandi.
You're right about correlating (mainstream) cinema having become bloated and top-heavy with the Marvel franchise or whatever its ilk, but such is a consequential symptom of multi-media conglomerates placating to the lowest common denominator of content consumption over aspiring to venue experiences.
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Post by Pyrogenic on Jun 9, 2022 21:56:55 GMT
I notice a great deal of snobbery towards the television series format in recent pages here. I mean, are some of you still living in the 1990s? Did you not take note of what happened in the past decade? The cinema has become a shadow of its former glorious self, and is now stuck with a Marvel form of diarrhoea; all the best screen drama comes on the small screen.
With the right storytellers, and an appropriate budget, I think the series format is a great fit for Star Wars. Lucas himself pioneered this with The Clone Wars, let's not forget - it's not as radically new as you think it is. It begun in 2008. He was also trying to do a live action version in Underworld, as we explored in another thread.
I've since posited some argument as to why but will reiterated that I'm nowhere near as accepting of this so-called "Second Golden Age" of television as is everyone else. I think it extremely overrated. Not garbage to be dismissed outright but certainly overrated, especially with all the worst habits of long-form storytelling and commonplace 'method' drama that tends to drag-out a narrative with little-to-no regard for presentational form and often well past its expiration date. From the scripting phase onto the editing room, just about every feature-filmmaker is obliged to hone their work with prudence. Some manage more cannily than others; Lucas in particular was impressively ruthless. With showrunners the whole mindset is all but reversed: to treat every season, episode, scene, like a quota to be met, to sustain on average a 22 to 45-minute runtime no matter what, at the core of it. Padding, lots of padding. Menial goings-on. Such is the obvious characteristic of all modern television that strikes me apparent, that always leaves me with the impression that I'm watching something prefab and intended as disposable time-consumption most convenient for the living-room viewer. I can almost feel the writers by mandate rationing out plot and narrative developments like canned goods—compositional movement & momentum being of no concern to the process of packaging with equal portions, and with pop-IPs like Star Wars being reduced to some kind of weekly "Loot Crate" of trivial trinkets. In recent years the industry of thrifty digital FX -- stock and ubiquitous -- along with chic multi-media marketing has brought about a bad tendency for genre shows to feign cinematic grandeur, in turn only delineating that much more the aforesaid modus operandi.
You're right about correlating (mainstream) cinema having become bloated and top-heavy with the Marvel franchise or whatever its ilk, but such is a consequential symptom of multi-media conglomerates placating to the lowest common denominator of content consumption over aspiring to venue experiences.
A few years ago, I wrote a full-length, fan-fiction Star Wars: Episode 0 screenplay. It's whatever. A few people have read it. Yippee. That said, it took about a year of hobby-time to actually "author." I started by writing random, out-of-context lines of dialogue that I wanted to be said somewhere in the movie. I slowly assembled them - puzzled them out - into a semi-coherent, comprehensible order that at the very least made linear narrative sense. I constructed the characters based on the types of things being said, similarities and themes that clustered around certain viewpoints, etc., my vague ideas about Star Wars, anything with potential for cobbling, basically. I made stuff up and stuck the things into the parts where they seemed to fit best. A few passes over, frog DNA here and there to fill in the sequence gaps. Basically started as a fairly long list of quotes. Now...I'm not a fan of TV. I used to watch it a lot growing up, but at some point, I consciously decided to stick with movies only. It's been maybe a decade and a half since I sat down and watched anything television or streaming-related, save for the first season of the anime called Demon Slayer. Anyway, my point is that it's hard to come up with a lot of good, usable content. I challenge (dare?) the other users of this forum to attempt to gather a bunch of good *fictional* ideas, put them to paper, and have anything that reaches the length of a broadcast-worthy TV episode or even a barely releasable movie. It's actually hard, at least for me. I have troubles writing lots of good prose, unlike some of you. I don't normally think that way. I'm more list-y, spell-y. This issue of the content being PADDED. Yeah. Hamburger Helper. Meeting the quote quota. Lots of low-qual butter scraped over too much bread. Not trying to chastise anybody for criticizing the crap that gets spewed out, but it is sort of truly difficult to generate a large idea that's good and detailed enough to tell a long story with. We all got nothing. |
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Post by nickromancer on Jun 9, 2022 22:37:28 GMT
I've since posited some argument as to why but will reiterated that I'm nowhere near as accepting of this so-called "Second Golden Age" of television as is everyone else. I think it extremely overrated. Not garbage to be dismissed outright but certainly overrated, especially with all the worst habits of long-form storytelling and commonplace 'method' drama that tends to drag-out a narrative with little-to-no regard for presentational form and often well past its expiration date. From the scripting phase onto the editing room, just about every feature-filmmaker is obliged to hone their work with prudence. Some manage more cannily than others; Lucas in particular was impressively ruthless. With showrunners the whole mindset is all but reversed: to treat every season, episode, scene, like a quota to be met, to sustain on average a 22 to 45-minute runtime no matter what, at the core of it. Padding, lots of padding. Menial goings-on. Such is the obvious characteristic of all modern television that strikes me apparent, that always leaves me with the impression that I'm watching something prefab and intended as disposable time-consumption most convenient for the living-room viewer. I can almost feel the writers by mandate rationing out plot and narrative developments like canned goods—compositional movement & momentum being of no concern to the process of packaging with equal portions, and with pop-IPs like Star Wars being reduced to some kind of weekly "Loot Crate" of trivial trinkets. In recent years the industry of thrifty digital FX -- stock and ubiquitous -- along with chic multi-media marketing has brought about a bad tendency for genre shows to feign cinematic grandeur, in turn only delineating that much more the aforesaid modus operandi.
You're right about correlating (mainstream) cinema having become bloated and top-heavy with the Marvel franchise or whatever its ilk, but such is a consequential symptom of multi-media conglomerates placating to the lowest common denominator of content consumption over aspiring to venue experiences.
A few years ago, I wrote a full-length, fan-fiction Star Wars: Episode 0 screenplay. It's whatever. A few people have read it. Yippee. That said, it took about a year of hobby-time to actually "author." I started by writing random, out-of-context lines of dialogue that I wanted to be said somewhere in the movie. I slowly assembled them - puzzled them out - into a semi-coherent, comprehensible order that at the very least made linear narrative sense. I constructed the characters based on the types of things being said, similarities and themes that clustered around certain viewpoints, etc., my vague ideas about Star Wars, anything with potential for cobbling, basically. I made stuff up and stuck the things into the parts where they seemed to fit best. A few passes over, frog DNA here and there to fill in the sequence gaps. Basically started as a fairly long list of quotes. Now...I'm not a fan of TV. I used to watch it a lot growing up, but at some point, I consciously decided to stick with movies only. It's been maybe a decade and a half since I sat down and watched anything television or streaming-related, save for the first season of the anime called Demon Slayer. Anyway, my point is that it's hard to come up with a lot of good, usable content. I challenge (dare?) the other users of this forum to attempt to gather a bunch of good *fictional* ideas, put them to paper, and have anything that reaches the length of a broadcast-worthy TV episode or even a barely releasable movie. It's actually hard, at least for me. I have troubles writing lots of good prose, unlike some of you. I don't normally think that way. I'm more list-y, spell-y. This issue of the content being PADDED. Yeah. Hamburger Helper. Meeting the quote quota. Lots of low-qual butter scraped over too much bread. Not trying to chastise anybody for criticizing the crap that gets spewed out, but it is sort of truly difficult to generate a large idea that's good and detailed enough to tell a long story with. We all got nothing. But Star Wars is one of the highest profile series and guaranteed to get a lot of interest and sky high expectations. It’s a series that can fall apart into silliness too easily if it’s not quality. i don’t think audiences will accept much more of watching Star Wars stumble at every opportunity. And I don’t think the cause is writer’s block, but I might think the writers aren’t going back and watching the first six movies enough or atleast not studying them in depth More and more I get the feeling that the new creators share some common fan misconceptions about the movies and it’s having a negative effect. The greatest example is Dave filoni’s famous duel of the fates “explanation” |
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Post by Cryogenic on Jun 9, 2022 23:30:25 GMT
I notice a great deal of snobbery towards the television series format in recent pages here. I mean, are some of you still living in the 1990s? Did you not take note of what happened in the past decade? The cinema has become a shadow of its former glorious self, and is now stuck with a Marvel form of diarrhoea; all the best screen drama comes on the small screen. With the right storytellers, and an appropriate budget, I think the series format is a great fit for Star Wars. Lucas himself pioneered this with The Clone Wars, let's not forget - it's not as radically new as you think it is. It begun in 2008. He was also trying to do a live action version in Underworld, as we explored in another thread.
Thanks for the reality check. We needed it. Well, I did, at any rate. I must admit that I love the idea of a sprawling Obi-Wan miniseries, but I'm not certain it's panning out so well in reality. Some people are saying that "Stranger Things" is whooping Kenobi's ass. I've never really sat down and watched the former, but I thought I ought to check out the Season Four trailer for ST, so I did; and yeah, if nothing else, the series is impressively shot -- very rich colour palettes, very cinematic: A TV miniseries that is pretty freakin' awesome is the 2008 HBO production John Adams starring Paul Giamatti. Giamatti is fantastic in the title role and the whole series is very intelligently written. It's only seven episodes long, yet has a run-time of 500 minutes. By comparison, Obi-Wan is six episodes and looks like it'll be clocking in at not more than 200 minutes. While there's something to be said for concision, worse than concision is pointless clutter and filler to disguise a hollow or poorly-articulated premise. I really hope that hasn't happened with Obi-Wan, but it could be argued that Star Wars isn't really making a true go of it in the television format under Disney. Pushback against this series is already quite acute. There are many people criticising it for lacking substance, putting other characters ahead of Kenobi, complaints of poor direction, and people bemoaning the set design and visual effects as lacking compared to "The Mandalorian" and other streaming shows. Even you have deemed this last episode filler, have you not, Arch Duke? Now, I'm not saying you share those criticisms, or even that I share them. Nevertheless, the sense that this show is compromised, and more of a mid-range than a top-tier production, is already far from a corner-case opinion online. That's concerning. It doesn't look like this series is going to earn the raves that "Rogue One" and "The Mandalorian" achieved, or the initial wave of fawning that "The Force Awakens" was greeted with. I already prefer it to R1 and TFA, mind you. I'm just saying there's a certain degree of mud attached to this series already -- and for a beloved character like Obi-Wan, where fans seemed willing to give Disney a chance before it launched, that's disappointing. But I'm not personally throwing Kenobi under the bus. For whatever its flaws and limitations, it's the most excited I've been watching a Star Wars thing since ROTS in 2005. Check out my detailed notes for the first and second episodes on the previous page. I actually do love the idea of an episodic approach, each being like a little window into the world of Star Wars and the headspace of Obi-Wan, much like the movies and the way they examine Anakin. Having the episodes rhyme with the films is a stroke of genius. There are things this series is doing that are underappreciated. Obi-Wan may well turn into an underrated Star Wars enterprise, much like the prequels. My mind truly isn't made up at this juncture. We really need those final two episodes. |
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Post by jppiper on Jun 9, 2022 23:45:36 GMT
Cryogenic Another problem is messing with Continuity
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The "tomb" of Jedi corpses felt like it was done for cheap shock value. I'm kind of getting the feeling that they are following in the footsteps of Rogue One's Vader. I don't know. I'm not feeling it. Have to rewatch.
