Dakota is killing it on the indie side of things…
It's funny looking back at the start of this thread and seeing that the main thing everyone was talking about was Matt Smith.
Funny enough, I was hyped at the time for the film, but halfway towards its release, I had a gut feeling we were in trouble. By fall of 2019, I couldn't wait for the film to come out and be done with.The mistake we all made was thinking Episode 9 had new things in store for us.
I was thinking about this the other day and one underrated positive aspect that Episode 9 gave us was Richard E. Grant as General Pryde. He really deserved a better film since his was probably the most imposing and threatening officer throughout the whole saga besides Tarkin.
I wasn't even watching Rise of Skywalker recently but I had Bram Stoker's Dracula playing on Netflix in the background the other day and Grant was in it, which made me think of it.
Grant was a great pick for an evil officer no doubt, shame he had basically nothing to do.
Probably a minority opinion, but I liked Hux and liked him as a sniveling weasel. I don't think he had to be personally threatening to function as an antagonist. His position and resources are what made him dangerous. He's what a lot of contemporary evil looks like tbh. An untouchable, spineless snake.
I think Hux is fine as a character taken on his own, but I think it just highlights the fact that the ST had a villain issue in terms of the lack of a genuinely threatening presence. Hux's position and resources being the source of why he's threatening-- yeah I can agree with that, but it also feels a bit undercooked to me considering we get so little in terms of how how The First Order came to be and rose to power so quickly.
This wouldn't be as much of an issue to me if we weren't dealing with a series that was already 6 films into its lore when the ST kicked things off. It just gets harder and harder for me to accept that they just basically handwaved away the ending of Return of the Jedi without really knowing why when they started this trilogy.
Funny enough, I was hyped at the time for the film, but halfway towards its release, I had a gut feeling we were in trouble. By fall of 2019, I couldn't wait for the film to come out and be done with.
Regarding Hux...I think he could have made for an interesting bad guy if given the chance ...I honestly thought that he would end up overthrowing Kylo in Episode IX on discovering that he was responsible for Snoke's death, and not Rey.
Funny enough, I was hyped at the time for the film, but halfway towards its release, I had a gut feeling we were in trouble. By fall of 2019, I couldn't wait for the film to come out and be done with.
It definitely would haha. It's why I refuse to look over them haha, but I don't regret hyping the movie up. Hype is fun, you just gotta set expectations.Your unbridled enthusiasm and hype for this film and J.J. as director was one of the most memorable things about this film's prerelease. I imagine going back through all your posts in this thread from start to finish would be a depressing read.
But somehow Palpatine returned.The mistake we all made was thinking Episode 9 had new things in store for us.
The hype train for TFA was so damn fun. It was so refreshing, and it felt so good to have new Star Wars. The first teaser got me so hyped, and then the theatrical trailer at Star Wars celebration just sent my hype to overdrive. Honestly, my hype didn't die down for any of this until the discourse over TLJ started. I didn't love TLJ on first watch, but that paled in comparison to my disappointment in the Star Wars community as a whole. It soured the whole experience for me, and still does to this day as much as I love Mandalorian.
It's ironic considering I now think The Last Jedi is the strongest film in the ST.
Yup, same for me. It's just not something I enjoy talking about anymore. Rogue One is a fabulous movie, and Mandalorian is amazing, but I don't think I'll get super emotionally invested in a Star Wars film again. Outside of the OT.That's pretty much how I feel as well.
The discourse made things so toxic, and the "pick a side" mentality ,makes it tough for me to want to revisit the ST or want to rewatch them, including TROS.
The discourse around the TLJ and TROS tainted them for me, and that's aside from what I feel about them as films.
It no longer became fun to talk about, or speculate about the next SW film, since it basically just became a shouting match and there wasn't much room for nuance.
Mandalorian is the saving grace for me, and I really enjoy it.
I also really liked Rogue One as well.