La Times: Admit it, The Force Awakens stinks

Wait am I getting helped to see things for what they really are ( if they are ), to see the truth of your opinion or the opinions that amalgamate to truth?
Also is this a recurring subscription?

 

Our opinion. No subscription required.

 

Did you just call everyone sheep and try to enlarge yourself into platonic didactics before launching into an argument from authority ( authority based on imaginary social prestige no less )?
I readily admit my jests directed at you were more than just a little condescending allready ( meant in good sport though ) so I better stop at that question.

*Our*.
Always two there are, I see.

 

I like it for several reasons.
I'll go through a few.

1. Color palette consistency in the shooting follows the story arc motif better than any film since ANH in the series.
2. We're finally free of center-screen over-obsession in Star Wars! (which reached its peak obsession point in the prequels)
3. Shot blocking is better than any film in the series.
4. For the first time in a Star Wars movie we are given the Z (push/pull, as opposed to left/right/up/down) axis for camera movement.
5. Kasdan finally wrote the opening act to a part of the trilogy and it's brilliant to see his way of doing it in contrast to Lucas.
6. The parallels between ANH and ESB are wonderful and I enjoy their cinematic poetry (to me; they are not just 'ripping off' ANH or ESB - Kasdan also doesn't think they were; he has spoken about intentionally drawing parallels).
7. That the path of the lightsaber is inverse of ANH.
8. That Chewie screams "No!" at Han dying for the parallel of Obi Wan screaming at Quigon's death, or Luke at Ben's death.
9. The Starkiller was not just the bad guys making their own perfect world (as the Death Stars were fully sythetic; a perfectly designed and ordered world), but instead showing the First Order's difference from the Empire in that they are interested in twisting nature and bending it to their will by boring into it and changing its very heart with their machines.
10. That the Starkiller's twisting is an echo of Darth Vader's own twisting of his natural self into a dark and evil machine - more machine than man; more machine than planet.
11. The Falcon chase scene on Jakku.
12. Space fights were actual moving cameras along with the shot and not just a statically positioned panning camera after a panning camera after a panning camera, etc... inter-spliced with center-screen cockpit views.
13. Space ships were finally treated like subjects of equal value as characters for the camera rather than treated as static objects that don't visually counterpart character blocking in shots.
14. The inversion of the protagonists from their predecessors - (Mr. Big Time Finn (next gen Han) is Lando pulled into Han's position (and no; not just because he's black...that's silly; his character is more Lando than Han, but he's being pulled in as the next gen Han), Rey is a female hero protagonist super-Jedi instead of a male, Poe is the "already on the good guy political/military force" male reversal of Leia [complete with a rescue by a not-quite-really stormtrooper ).
15. The ground opened up between Kylo and Rey, foreshadowing the schism in the family that would be brought forward by their opposition.
16. That in the past it was the Father against the Son, the Teacher against the Student, and now it is among equals (likely relatives; cousins perhaps; not sure); that once it was the good which rose to defeat the already powerful evil (and failed), and then it was the evil which rose to defeat the already powerful good (and failed), and now it is both good and evil which are rising together to defeat each other (or who knows...maybe they'll kiss and make up at the end).
17. A Tie Fighter flown by the good guys was much more fun to watch than an Imperial shuttle.
18. BB-8 was ever bit of a quality droid character as R2 and 3PO; very, very well done.

And several lesser items that were just nicely done, but those are among many primary appreciations.

 

Not only that, this forum already has a stickied media review thread, right here:

https://thecantina.starwarsnewsnet.com/index.php?threads/offical-tfa-media-review-thread.7346/

It also has a stickied member review thread, right here:

https://thecantina.starwarsnewsnet.com/index.php?threads/member-reviews-of-the-force-awakens.7718/

I do find it interesting/amusing that an appeal to authority is being made to the LA Times' Business columnist, not it's film critic. The LA Times' film critic, Turan, is a pretty snarky stereotypical avant garde type, and he was able to muster half-praise for the film.

 

Here I found it.

Read this:

https://archive.org/stream/starlog_magazine-076/076#page/n5/mode/2up

I've heard the same ranting 32 years ago on a little film called ROTJ.
Same people calling it now a masterpiece.

 

Do any of you have any idea how many crappy movies were put out this year that undeservedly got 'great reviews'?

I went to see Star Wars...

Was it 'perfect'? ...No
Was I entertained? ... Definitely

So the real question is... am I paying money for perfection? Or to be entertained?

 

He's a perfect example of an internet troll. He opened his account two and half weeks ago, in that time averaging more than 10 posts a day, and has almost 100 more negative ratings than posts. Nearly all of his posts are intentionally condescending. There's no objectivity. He's just here to piss in everyone's Cheerios.

You got to hand it to him, he's dedicated to trying to irritate people. I mean, think about the time he's dedicated to posting about a movie he says he doesn't like. It's got to be the only thing he thinks about. It's not exactly a sign of strong mental health, but it's entertaining.

 

Not at all; I actually could not disagree more with that. They even went out of their way to use the CGI to emulate the matte painting style of the old method rather than just creating a CGI detail rich background that's "life-like".

However, that is not what I meant by the palette consistency, as even the OT radically changes from movie to movie as to what the Star Wars universe looks like, and that's because the directors changed from each and each thought of that color palette very, very differently from each other.

What I meant with the palette was that the color palette is very smooth and consistently moving in a gradient in step with the tonality of the movie.
There are no jarring moments such as ROTJ's extremely eyeball bleeding toggle between the ultra-dark Darth Vader and Luke fight and the Daylight Endor battle.
ANH has a very well crafted palette progression, moving lighter to darker as the movie progresses and then light again in the end.

TFA is somewhat similar, and avoids strong contrasts in juxtaposition in the way that ROTJ did which do not motif tonality of the scene taking place.

I thought the tethering was hilarious, and outstanding, but that's just me I suppose.
The movement of the Tie was pretty nicely done; they well captured its form of movement, but increased the intensity of it.
Now, it was a bit more difficult to see the movement's "sliding" style of the Tie's as the old ones, and this is partly due to the nature of the camera movement this time around instead of the camera being positioned (by consequence, really) in a static position with mild panning.

The OT didn't have much of an option; they couldn't move the camera around much for those shots because there were technically multiple cameras involved in composite shot, and then there was the "shot" camera which was a camera that shot the backdrop (often space backdrop) and had to be capable of allowing all of the other cameras to fit into the shot without losing them or causing an awkward counter motion of the shot than the camera which created each individual model's movement impression.
So consequently, the "main" or "shot" camera more or less often just sat still and things flew in front of it. If there was just one or perhaps two ships and they were traveling in the same direction, then it might be that there's some movement in the backdrop or the "shot" camera, but if there's multiples on there then the "shot" camera more or less sits its butt right still and doesn't move around.

As a result, you see the Tie's "sliding" style of flight more easily in that style than when you also move the "shot" camera around everywhere - and of course, it is far more easy to do that now with CGI than it was to do back with the complicated multi-shot composite method of the OT.

As to Kylo's ship design - meh, I thought it was kind of cool.
On the other hand; plenty of my friends back in the 80's made fun of the Imperial Shuttle then as well.

 

Pretty funny to see these haters moving on to conspiracy theories. It's fine to not like the movie, but to insinuate that the rest of us are just mindless sheep? That's rather pathetic.

 

You're a stalker

 

Coming to your fellow troll's defense? That's sweet.

 

I'm not a troll

 

You're right, I take that back. You're not a troll. You devote a lot of energy to being negative, (and you apparently think my ability to read the stats under DFF's name makes me a stalker) but that does not make you a troll.

 

TFA is not a BAD movie, it's just not very GREAT either. its simply a good movie. My problems come less from the fact that it rips off ANH quite a bit but moreso from JJ Abrams and his approach to film making in general. I hated some of the dialogue delivery in this film. It's almost as if JJ knew that certain cut scenes would cause the plot to feel disjointed and so he over-generalized the dialogue in many instances. "No one has been able to get out of you...what you did with the MAP" "i shoulda never sent him away thats when i lost him, thats when i lost you both" "we lost our son" i can go on but my point is JJ really dumbed down the dialogue as if he doesnt trust the audience. JJ moves the camera view to Rey and Finn while Han is impaled almost as if he doesnt even trust the audience on how to feel during such an important scene. but Hans death falls flat because there is zero context for him and kylo's relationship. the only context we get it Han and Leia repeating "our son" multiple times within 2 minutes and it ultimately comes off as superbly forced. the whole death scene feels conveniently staged. Rey running out of the Castle always feels kinda dumb, and ive seen in 6 times. I get shes in denial but the scene feels like an overreaction and its obviously present only for Rey to get kidnapped by Kylo. it just wasnt handled well enough. I also wish they woulda played more with Kylo vs Hux involving BB8. We get the one line about Snoke wanting the droid dead or alive, but its not enough and we never truly get the feeling that Kylo has a seperate motive and because of that, when the FO just starts blowing everything up it feels clunky, as they are after the droid but still blowing up the castle which doesnt make much sense. but i tried to chalk that up to Snoke and the Order wanting the droid dead and Kylo feeling differently. Obviously, Starkiller is joke worthy. its completely pointless. the whole Oscillator thing is so dumb and there is really never a clear objective. The Resistance is just there to try and do what they can. I get its kinda like a suicide mission as they dont really have much hope until Chewie blows the explosives, but i wish they would have played up on that feeling of it being a fight they probably cant win. everything just kinda ends after Poe flys in and shoots blast. Its definitely not even close to being on par with ANH and ESB. i dont even think it comes close to ROTJ and RoTJ is by no means a perfect film. it just does more right than TFA. and god i hate JJ's edititing the movie just zooms to the next scene and i think the editing is the biggest problem with the final film. i think had they left in more of the scenes weve heard about that the story would flow better. But overall, i do agree the film is highly overrated. but so what? so is every big movie these days. I saw Guardians of the Galaxy and felt that was typical formulaic Marvel fare and yet critics loved it. Rotten Tomatoes really isnt a good judge of quality anymore. If it werent for Rey Finn Kylo and Poe, i cant say id be too excited for the 8th episode. Those actors and Rian Johnson are my hope. I hated how Luke Skywalker was treated in the film i thought the reasoning for his absense was ridiculous and completely out of character so i really hope Rian Johnson is a real Luke fan and can right the wrongs in that department. sulking Luke is just so incredible lame i cant believe JJ thought that would make Luke intriguing. let alone mythic?

 

That was a insightful read, thank you for that! Personally I don't think ROTJ is a master piece, I do see its flaws but I think it has more and better moments than TFA. I like both movies a lot..saw TFA 3 times already Funny how the initial reactions to ROTJ's screening pretty much mirror those of TFA.

 

The reviewer from the LA Times is a business columnist. Don't see where he's ever done another movie review.

Not sure why anyone would take his opinion more seriously than anyone else off the street.